Date/Time
Date(s) - April 4, 2025 - July 27, 2025
10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Location
Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, University Center for the Arts
Maya Guatemala and Us: Divergent Convergences
The Griffin Foundation Gallery: April 4 to July 27, 2025
This exhibition offers a visual narrative of a particular confluence between the Maya civilization and its peoples and peoples from Europe and North America. There are convergences: the development of similarities and shared cultural reference points. And there are divergences: displacement, subordination, dominance, and a multitude of ways in which power tears us apart. We can read the development of these similarities and differences through a variety of lenses, but there is one claim that cannot sustain validity—that we have nothing to do with each other.
Today, almost 90% of the Maya peoples live in Guatemala and 98% of the people of Guatemala are Maya or Mestizo—an ethno-racial mixture of indigenous American and European peoples. Although there are broader dimensions to this tale, it is not a distortion to tell the story of Guatemala through a Maya narrative or the story of Maya destiny through a Guatemalan narrative.
This exhibition has been organized according to an historical/thematic story. Vibrant images bring to life a tale of pre-convergence stability and achievement interrupted by unexpected conquest and spiritual displacement legitimized by a “Doctrine of Discovery” resulting in mass repressions, civil war, and distorted perceptions. Yet, perhaps even more unexpected, bridges were created—convergences, points of conflict and integration—that, paradoxically, have given expression to grievances and birth to hopes.
SUPPORT
Support for this exhibition and related programming is provided by the City of Fort Collins Fort Fund, the FUNd Endowment at CSU, and the Lilla B. Morgan Memorial Endowment, which works to enhance cultural development and the arts at Colorado State University. This fund benefits from the generous support of all those who love the arts. https://president.colostate.edu/lilla-b-morgan-endowment/.
