Aug

When a Mexican Cartoonist Speaks Your Language

by Eva Boynton on August 29, 2016

A cartoon showing the female symbol as a cross on a tombstone, drawn by Cintia Bolio, a Mexican cartoonist fighting gender stereotypes. (image © Cintia Bolio).

Ni una más (Not One More) speaks out on violence against women.
© Cintia Bolio

Cintia Bolio Fights Gender Stereotypes

At a desk, pen and sketchbook ready, I waited with 50 other people for our teacher to arrive. In walks Cintia Bolio, with black hair wrapped around her shoulders, big hoop earrings, and a giant smile spread across her face.

She was here at the Museum of Memory and Tolerance in Mexico City to teach a course that revealed, through piercing words and pictures, the woman’s role in Mexican culture. The course had an intriguing title: Political Comic and Gender Perspectives.

A drawing of a woman holding an anatomical heart by Cintia Bolio, a Mexican cartoonist fighting gender stereotypes. (image © Cintia Bolio)

Libertad de expresión (Freedom of Expression) is an example of
how Bolio picks up a pen for women’s rights.
© Cintia Bolio

I anticipated a language barrier in the class, but soon found that Bolio’s images speak a universal language. With each lesson Bolio broke down gender stereotypes, as she does every day by working as a Mexican cartoonist in a field dominated by men in Mexico and Latin America.

Her career journey is just as important to share as her bold caricatura política (political cartoons).

The Critical Eye of a Child

While other kids played with toys, planned extravagant quinceañeras (a Mexican tradition for a girl’s “sweet 15”), and watched television, Cintia Bolio buried herself in book after book.

Artist Cintia Bolio with a drawing pen behind her ear is a Mexican cartoonist who fights gender stereotypes. (image © Cintia Bolio).

The artist herself
© Cintia Bolio

Bolio grew up a little differently from the kids around her. Her mother read books to her, her aunt shared travels, and her grandparents sang duets accompanied by guitar.

Her family was rich in humor, art, and culture, and those experiences gave her a diverse education.

By primary school, she recognized there were problems with the government and social norms.

By high school, she was questioning the education taught by her teachers.

Soon thereafter, she was expressing her ideas in powerful cartoons of her own.

A cartoon of a school girl and a teacher in front of a chalkboard, where the teacher has written pronouns using only masculine forms and the school girl has rewritten them to include both masculine and feminine forms, drawn by Cintia Bolio, a Mexican cartoonist fighting gender stereotypes. (image© Cintia Bolio)

Una sabe (She Knows) shows a young student insisting on gender inclusive language.
The teacher writes masculine pronouns, while the student responds with feminine and masculine.
© Cintia Bolio

Cartoons made a great impact on Bolio as a child. She loved the animated characters, humor, and cartoon style. It spoke her language. But reading one after another, she had an “Oh, I see” moment: all the cartoons and characters were created by men!

With a critical eye and courage to stand her ground, Bolio, at age 21, decided to give her two cents. Thus, she began her career, giving new language to controversial themes, especially gender stereotypes in Mexico, from the perspective of an analytical woman.

Fighting to Keep Perspective

Bolio believes in neither the superiority of men nor women. But she also recognizes the reality of women’s everlasting climb to a summit dominated by men. She finds that her “Oh, I see” moment as a child is still relevant today.

The character Alice from Alice in Wonderland wearing a gag and holding a weapon that looks like an angry fist inside of the female symbol, drawn by Cintia Bolio, a Mexican cartoonist to fight gender stereotypes. (image © Cintia Bolio)

Alicia en rebeldía (Alice in Rebellion)
© Cintia Bolio

For example, men are paid more in the workplace and receive a more secure position for their comics in newspapers and magazines.

It extends beyond Mexico’s borders and into other arenas: the US women’s national soccer team is paid less than the men’s team—no matter that the women’s team has more wins, viewers, and game revenue.

Bolio’s own experiences as a female political cartoonist often turn into material for her upcoming cartoons.

“Bravo, a woman! Bravo, very good work!” is how, at first, she is received by newspapers and magazines. Then, as they read the content, their expressions change and excuses follow: “Actually, we don’t have room for a new comic; there is not enough pay; no work is needed at this time.”

Bolio explains, “They read a reflection of themselves. It is a mirror, and they don’t like what they see.”

A cartoon of the patriarchal system, showing a large man representing government with knife and fork in hand about to eat his dinner, which is under a glass dome; dinner is a man also ready to eat his dinner, which shows as the female symbol also under a glass dome--all in a drawing by Cintia Bolio, a Mexican cartoonist fighting gender stereotypes. (image © Cintia Bolio)

In Banquete, (Banquet) Bolio pens her view of the hierarchy in Mexican culture: the government first, then the man, and last the woman.
© Cintia Bolio

Although it has been difficult to find places to publish, Bolio refuses to give up her themes to snag time in the spotlight.

“You would think that newspapers are a space for new ideas and thought,” she says, “but they are still full of machismo and men with the same ideas.” She has found accepting places to publish like El Chamuco, and she has pursued her craft though an artistic window in social media (Facebook) and on her blog Puras Evas (Pure Eves).

Let’s Talk About It!

Bolio’s goal is to create a space to address the very topics for which magazines turn her away, topics ingrained in everyday life. She believes that gender stereotypes stem from one main source of information in Mexico: television.

A cartoon of a thumb coming from a TV and squishing a brain, drawn by Cintia Bolio, a Mexican cartoonist fighting gender stereotypes and commenting on how TV programming in Mexico affects women. (image© Cintia Bolio)

TV Digital (Digital TV) is Bolio’s view of the effect of TV on Mexican
women: “Spluosh!” go the brain cells.
© Cintia Bolio

She explains the impact of the TV programming in Mexico: “It’s a school more powerful than the real school. It’s a rich country with poor people. They don’t have money to go to a museum. So they learn from their screens. They get their love from the screens. They learn to live, love, and have an image of themselves from the screen.”

So much so that Bolio questions in this cartoon who is the true patron saint of Mexico—Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe or this electronic version with teeth:

A figure with the body of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe and a television set with teeth for the head, drawn by Cintia Bolio, a Mexican cartoonist fighting gender stereotypes. (image © Cintia Bolio)

Nuestra verdadera Santa Patrona . . . (Our True Patron Saint . . .) reveals that
television has its worshippers and its victims.
© Cintia Bolio

On TV in Mexico, telenovelas (similar to soap operas) encourage and exaggerate gender stereotypes. Women are often portrayed as weak people who are taken advantage of. They show emotional and aggressive behavior toward other women. And like some of the US reality TV shows, there can be repetitive and calculated violence against women.

In this cartoon for Mother’s Day (always May 10 in Mexico), Bolio borrows the design of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man to highlight the duties she sees as assigned to Mexican women: caring for the house and children.

A cartoon of a woman in the same design as Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" with items representing household chores and childcare around her, drawn by Cintia Bolio, a Mexican cartoonist fighting gender stereotypes. (image © Cintia Bolio).

For Mother’s Day, En la madre con el día (What the ___ is up with the day?) records the stereotypical “measurements of a woman.”
© Cintia Bolio

Bolio’s cartoons and caricatures can make you smile or furrow your brow with contemplation. But, every time, they hit a chord that leads to questioning our social norms and reevaluating everyday comforts. She makes us more aware of our “guilty pleasures,” like television shows, movies, and music videos that continue to foment oppression of women.

“Fight Like a Girl”

Bolio’s fight is against gender stereotypes, and she is armed with the powerful tools of cartooning and humor. She explains the next steps in the fight: “We need to help other women to be more sensitive and have more empathy to realize we are the oppressed. Invite women and men to be conscious.”

A cartoon of a Lady Justice without her blindfold and looking through glasses of gender equality with one lens in the shape of the male symbol and the other in the shape of the female symbol, drawn by Cintia Bolios, a Mexican cartoonist fighting gender stereotypes. (image © Cintia Bolio)

In Equidad y justicia (Equity and Justice), the blindfold is removed, and Lady Justice looks through two lenses, representing gender equality.
© Cintia Bolio

There is still much work to be done in the 21st Century. Gender stereotypes cross cultures and pervade our everyday language. For example, “You ___ like a girl!” is just one example of language that needs redefining.

This Mexican cartoonist speaks everyone’s language: she is fighting against gender stereotypes and for equity between women and men. Spanish is not required to understand the theme. She invites us to grab eraser, pencil, and paper and . . .

. . . start rewriting!

A cartoon of a woman's torso overlaid by a drawing pen, drawn by Cintia Bolio, a Mexican cartoonist fighting gender stereotypes. (image© Cintia Bolio).

Draw like a girl, powerfully.
© Cintia Bolio

Thank you, Cintia Bolio, for your incredible work and your interview in both Spanish and English.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Eva Boynton 7 Comments

Language & Culture/Mexico

Jun

When the Catch of the Day is a Cultural Experience

by Eva Boynton on June 13, 2016

The tail of a fish, symbolizing the fishing lessons that provided the writer an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton)

The catch of the day
© Eva Boynton

Fishing Lessons to Share

Travel is a sea of opportunity, but often one in which people and places come and go in a kind of “catch and release” game. And yet, travelers who take the time to dive into local waters, engaging with people from within the culture, often go home with a rich sense of satisfaction, anchored in the authentic cultural experience.

I know. I learned about that during an “Oh, I see” moment in Mazunte, Mexico, when fishing lessons from Melchor, a local fisherman, turned into a bigger catch of the day.

The local fisherman, who gave us fishing lessons, walks down a trail to his favorite fishing spot near Mazunte, Mexico, the site of an authentic cultural experience that enhanced the writer's travel memories (image © Eva Boynton).

Melchor on his way to catch a fish
© Eva Boynton

Fishing for Local Knowledge

In Manzunte, my travel companion stumbled upon a group of local fisherman and struck up a conversation. Her show of interest and inquisitive mind were enough to land an invitation from Melchor to a day of casting the line ourselves.

“Hasta mañana!” we said, and the next day we were headed down a gorgeous trail to a rocky perch that overlooked the blue horizon of the sea.

A view from a cliff to a fishing spot by the ocean in Mazunte, Mexico, showing the site of fishing lessons that provided an authentic cultural experience for the writer. (image © Eva Boynton).

Local knowledge got us to this beautiful perch.
© Eva Boynton

We had arrived at Melchor’s local fishing spot, a place beyond any guide book, discovered through trial and error, tested and developed over time. The kind of place you get to only through “local knowledge.” Such places are windows to a culture’s customs and daily life, a gift to the traveler who reaches past the English-speaking tour guide.

Learning the Local Technique

Another gift of an authentic cultural experience is the insight that there are many ways to accomplish the same goal.

Take fishing, for example. Melchor and his family used a simple and effective technique. No fancy fishing pole. No net. Just a hook, bait, fishing line, and a cloth wrapped around the index finger and thumb for protection from the line.

Two people stringing fishing bait together, showing the fishing lessons learned from an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

The first step? Ready the bait.
© Eva Boynton

Through this technique, tools are simplified, the mind more creative and focused on the practice.

A hand holding fishing bait on the end of a hook, demonstrating part of the fishing lessons learned during an authentic cultural experience while traveling in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

Hooked to cultural encounters
© Eva Boynton

With bait on the hook, the hook on the line, and the line wrapped around the fingers, Melchor and his family were ready to fish.

They swung the baited line around their heads, helicopter style. Then—one, two, three, swoop!—the line soared towards the sea.

Reeling the fishing line in has a specific form and precision as well. Both hands hold the line, one hand brings the line to the other, forming a swift and constant crossing motion. This technique reels in the line without getting it into a tangled mess.

Melchor and his family were experts.

A boy throwing a fishing line into the ocean, as he demonstrates part of fishing lessons learned during an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton)

The pro at work
© Eva Boynton

Trying Our Hand

After watching from the shade of the rocks, it was time to apply our fishing lessons. We stepped into the sun and took a stab at fishing with the local technique.

After her fishing lessons, a girl throws a fishing line into the ocean, during an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

My friends give it a go.
© Eva Boynton

Sure, it may sound simple—fishing with only a string and bait—but we soon hit the rocks, literally.

A local fisherman gives us fishing lessons as he demonstrates setting a fishing line free from the rocks and teaches the writer a lesson during an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

Melchor works his magic to free
my line from the rocks.
© Eva Boynton

I threw my line into the sea. That went well.

When I felt my first mighty tug, I began pulling in my line haphazardly, using the local crossing-arm technique. I expected to pull out a sizable fish.

But the pull I felt was nothing more than my novice hands reeling too slowly and unsteadily, and the bait lodged in a crevice between two rocks. My catch of the day: a sizable boulder.

Fishing line, we also discovered, is one hundred times harder to untangle than a box of last year’s Christmas lights. With untrained hands, we often reeled the line into microscopic knots.

Melchor and his family patiently helped us out of trouble. We were no longer just travelers passing through. We were students gaining local knowledge from Melchor and his family, our teachers.

A boy untangling fishing line as he offers fishing lessons during an authentic cultural experience in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton).

Melchor’s brother offers his practiced, agile hands to untangle my knotted line.
© Eva Boynton

Catching More than a Fish

At the end of the long day of fishing, we triumphantly returned to our campsite with a 3-foot-long blue beauty. Melchor had caught the fish, the only one that day, and handed it over to us so we could experience the local cuisine.

The head of a fish caught during an authentic cultural experience in which local fishermen offered the writer fishing lessons in Mexico. (image © Eva Boynton)

Melchor’s generous gift was bigger than a big fish.
© Eva Boynton

On our small camp stove, we cooked fish tacos, thankful for the local flavors that had spiced up our dinner and our lives. We had learned the power of engaging and exchanging.

A pan of cooking fish, the result of some fishing lessons that were part of an authentic cultural experience in Mexico (image © Eva Boynton).

A tasty exchange
between cultures
© Eva Boynton

Our willingness to meet and learn had given us new friends, unexpected skills, insights, and a tasty meal. The cultural experience enriched our trip and deepened our connection with Mexico.

From their fishing lessons, Melchor and his family gained in the exchange, too. Sharing local knowledge is an empowering opportunity to teach others about your culture and daily life. And that’s no fish tale.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Eva Boynton 5 Comments

Crossing Cultures/Mexico

Mar

The Underwater Museums of Jason deCaires Taylor

by Eva Boynton on March 14, 2016

A woman snorkeling in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor that shows innovations of artist and ocean. (image © Jason deClaire Taylor).

Enter a world of blue, where sculptures function as art and habitat.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Experience the Creative Partnership of Artist and Ocean

Under the blue line of the ocean’s surface is a world alive with movement. The environment is itself in constant motion; sunlight ripples across the scales of fish, while coral reef plants sway with the push and pull of the currents.

Often this world is forgotten by us land-dwellers, but not by sculptor and naturalist Jason deCaires Taylor. He has created, in the world’s first underwater museums, the perfect exhibit space for his larger-than-life sculptures.

His are museums that need no curator. The ocean does that job, constantly updating the exhibit and transforming the sculptures into a functioning artificial reef. Perhaps it is this partnership between artist and ocean that is the true innovation.

Sculpture in the underwater museum by Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovations by artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaire's Taylor)

An Eye for New Terrain, A Voice for the Ocean’s Future

What makes a great art exhibit? Emotive lighting, hints of wonder, astonishment, awe, or a powerful backdrop? Taylor’s chosen space has them all.

Taylor constructed underwater museums first near Grenada and then off the coast of Cancún, Mexico, and the Bahamas. Later he moved to more underwater locations around the world from Indonesia to the Oslo Fjord in Norway. Taylor explains why he loves to work in the aquatic gallery space:

Being underwater is a deeply personal, liberating, and otherworld experience. Like many interactions with the natural world, submersion is both humbling and life-affirming.

A sculpture of a woman with coral growing from her sides in the underwater museum by Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovations of artist and ocean. (image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

Reclamation, accentuated by dramatic lighting, purple Gorgonian sea fans, and a blue backdrop, reclaims the ocean as a precious place.
© Jason deClaires Taylor

Through his passion for diving, Taylor acquired an understanding of the sea’s territory, seeing it as a place to be revered and respected. Travelers who visit his museums sense, through his art installations, this feeling of deep respect for the oceans.

The sculptures, themselves, give voice to messages about the environment.

Sculptures of young people holding hands in a circle in the underwater museum off the coast of Grenada, an innovation by Jason deCaires Taylor. (image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

Vicissitudes, off the coast of Grenada, symbolizes the cycle of life and how we
are all affected by the circumstance of our surroundings.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Sculptures of bankers with their heads in the sand in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovations by artist and ocean. (image © Jason deCaires Taylor).

The Bankers, submerged near Cancún, communicates denial and resistance to environmental
crises caused by over-fishing, dredging, and careless tourism.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Taylor’s underwater museums, however, are more than a message. They show that humans can, in turn, have a positive impact on nature.

Art that Takes Action

Although coral reefs inhabit only 1% of the ocean’s vastness, a quarter to a third of all marine species call them home. Coral reefs are fleeting and fragile, too. Coral and sea sponges can be swept away by a hurricane or a snorkeler’s careless hand. They are often over-visited and over-fished.

With this in mind, Taylor constructs his sculptures in a way that preserves and extends coral reefs.

A sculpture of a girl in a garden of coral in Jason deCaires Taylor's underwater museum, showing innovations by both artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

He uses durable ph-neutral cement to form his artwork, texturing surfaces so that reef plants can attach. This encourages the expansion of the natural landscape, and results in living spaces for crustaceans and fish.

His underwater museums, then, serve as artificial reefs that relieve natural reefs from excessive tourism in destinations like Cancún, Mexico. When snorkelers and divers spend time visiting Taylor’s sculptures, the natural reefs have space and time to generate life.

Artist Jason deCaires Taylor scuba dives and plants coral in his sculptures in the underwater museum, showing innovations by artist and ocean. (image © Jason deCaires Taylor).

Taylor begins the rehabilitation process by planting coral in Man on Fire
near Isla Mujeres, Mexico.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

What started as “a small community” of sculptures off the coast of Cancún, grew into “an entire movement of people in defense of the sea.”

A school of fish swims around sculptures that have become an artificial reef in Jason deCaires Taylor's underwater museum, demonstrating the innovation of an underwater museum. (Image © Jason deClaires Taylor).

500 sculptures offer surfaces, nooks and crannies for marine life to develop.
Art and preservation go hand in hand in Silent Evolution.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Through his sculptures, Taylor has provided an amazing gallery of art and a place for ocean life to flourish. Ocean and artist share the same goals: encouragement of life. They have a symbiotic relationship, benefiting one another with their artistic innovations.

Silent Innovation by the Sea

Without as much as a whisper, the ocean begins to change the sculptures. As nature flourishes, the artwork undergoes mind-blowing transformations. Taylor explains witnessing the change:

As soon as we submerge the sculptures, they are not ours anymore. . . . The sculptures—they belong to the sea. As new reefs form, a new world literally starts to evolve.

Two sculptures covered in plant growth in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovation by both artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

For Taylor, the innovation in his work really begins when nature takes over. The ocean paints with the most spectacular red algae, curving coral, and sponges.

A sculpture covered in sea sponges, coral, algae and a sea star in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovations by both artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaires Taylor).

The transformation from studio to sea floor goes something like this:

A model's face, the sculpture of the model, and the sculpture transformed by the ocean after its installation in the underwater museum of Jason deCaires Taylor, showing innovation by both artist and ocean. (Image © Jason deCaires Taylor)

A recognizable figure becomes a sculpture and is then abstracted by sponges and algae.
Nature leaves her mark near Isla Mujeres, Cancún, Mexico.
© Jason deCaires Taylor

Jason deCaires Taylor’s work is a collaboration with the environment. Taylor lays down the foundation, and Nature forms positive mutations, achieving extraordinary appearances that only the ocean could conjure upon these man-made surfaces.

Oh, I See for Myself

I visited one of Taylor’s underwater museums off the coast of Cancún. As I swam from one sculpture to another, weaving around real reefs to visit the artificial ones, I saw first-hand how the sculptures change with time, how they become more a part of the sea with each passing day.

A view of the sculpture "Reclamation" in Jason deCaires Taylor's underwater, showing the innovations of both artist and ocean. (image © Eva Boynton).

I experienced the quiet underneath the ocean’s surface—a forgotten world that supports extraordinary life all the while. I became a part of Taylor’s artwork and mission, a traveler who entered his underwater museum out of curiosity and who left with a sense of responsibility to encourage life in Earth’s vast blue oceans.

—§—

Thank you, Jason, for your wonderful work and for sharing your photography. To see more images of Taylor’s work, check out his underwater sculptures. Dive deeper into Taylor’s underwater museum with this five minute video.

Comment on this post below.

Eva Boynton 6 Comments

Mexico/Nature Discovery/The World's Art & Design

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