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Maya Paintings As Teachers Of Justice: Art Making The Impossible Possible, Kryssi Staikidis

Journal of Social Theory in Art Education

This article examines Maya paintings as historical documents, political platforms and conduits for cultural transmission in two local Maya communities. Particular attention is paid to the recent history of genocide of Maya peoples in Guatemala and the production of paintings as visual reminders of cultural loss and regeneration, as well as visual means to protect Maya future generations. Collaborative ethnography and decolonizing methodologies (Lassiter, 1998; Tuhiwai-Smith, 1999) are used in this study; thus, Maya artists speak through written dialogues and interviews in first voice regarding massacres that were kept clandestine for three decades. This paper addresses the potential and capacity …