Vol. 38, No. 18

2-28-2007
By: Julia Harris

Maya Madness

Spring break trip breaks cultural divide

A spring break trip led by veteran art professor Malcolm Cochran will give students a taste of Mexico’s rich art history.

Cochran, a sculptor, will shepherd a group of undergraduates on the intensive study trip to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The trip comes as the crowning experience of his class, Interdisciplinary Arts Convergence.

Most of the students in the class are Arts Scholars, a program directed by Connie De Jong through the College of the Arts. It’s a program that offers undergraduates — not just students majoring in the arts —  the opportunity to share living quarters, take special workshops and classes and go on international field trips like the one they’re taking at the end of winter quarter.

The group will visit Merida, a sun-drenched city in the heart of Mayan Mexico, where they’ll explore Mayan ruins, contemporary and traditional art forms and the vibrant performing arts community. Merida is known internationally as a haven for artistic expression of all kinds, from sculpture to street performances to hand-made specialty papers.

The famous pyramids of Chichen Itza, which are more than 1,500 years old, are located only 75 miles from Merida.

“As a general rule, we don’t tend to study Mayan architectural ruins in school,” Cochran explains. “We tend to know a lot more about Greek and Roman ruins and ancient Egypt than we do about something that’s an hour and a half away by plane.”

De Jong, in her second year as coordinator of the Arts Scholars program, is excited to be part of the group’s second international study tour. Last year, she says, they went to Rio in Brazil to study design.

For this trip, De Jong spent a week last summer in Merida, scoping out places to stay, good restaurants and sites for students to visit. Some of the highlights, she says, will be visits to the Museo Macay, which showcases work of Yucatecan artists and visiting exhibits from other parts of Mexico, and tours of the Anthropology and History Museum.

Exploring Merida will give students the chance to reflect on questions they’ve been considering all quarter in this class. The syllabus has examined questions of identity and place, both at home and abroad.

“The heart of this class is, where do we come from and where are we going, and who are we as travelers and as creative people?” De Jong muses. “What does it mean to travel, to understand the place we’re going to?”

The process of answering those questions has taken the students on a circuitous path, from studying the history of Mayan civilization to making field trips to places like the Geological Museum in Orton Hall, where they learned the specific history of Ohio. They’ve also worked on creating photo essays, which will be hung on the walls of the Museo Macay, that tell the story of Columbus.

Fifth-year sculpture major Melissa Bornstein chose to photograph power lines dissecting the Columbus sky. Her photos highlight the concentration of power needed to make modern life possible.

She looks forward to experiencing the Mayan ruins and getting a closer look at the traditional weaving still being practiced in Merida. “I’m interested in studying the code these women put in their work and their use of color and form,” she says. “I’ve been to South Africa and seen the beadwork they do there so I’m interested in comparing the two cultural styles.”

What is particularly interesting to De Jong is the way old and new traditions converge in Merida, creating a rich cultural identity she hopes students come to appreciate.

“Contrary to popular belief, the Mayans did not die out when the Spaniards came,” De Jong says. “There are still 13 million of them in the region, alive and well and affecting everyday life, and to go to Merida without understanding that would be irresponsible.”

Not all of the trip will be such an intense intellectual and cultural experience, De Jong hastens to add. There will be a beach trip or two sandwiched between museum excursions and visits to local artisans.

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