Río grande Santiago is an in situ ritual-performance that consisted of throwing extended cotton textile arms into the Río Grande Santiago, one of the most polluted rivers in México, from the Arcediano Bridge near the city of Guadalajara. The sleeves, used as a bodily extension, aim to touch and embrace the river. Photography by Pistor Orendain, 2019. Costume design by Alejandra de Zulueta.

A letter to the river:

Dear Río Grande Santiago, we have been so irresponsible with you. We left you at the mercy of the government and the industries, who poisoned your waters under the guise of "sustainable development." So poisoned are you, that when little Ángel López fell into your bed, he died from intoxication. Political power and money have turned you into the largest and most foul-smelling sewage system in the country. Your lush, multicolored foam announces nothing but sickness and death. And to think that thousands of fish once swam in your once-clear waters! To think that you were a loyal ally of Indigenous peoples. Thanks to your vastness and strength, these communities managed to resist and fight off the Spanish for several decades.

And how did we repay you, river? By crowning you with a relocated bridge, the clearest symbol of water mismanagement in the region: the Arcediano. A project riddled with irregularities and abuses that ended up displacing the inhabitants of the last rural settlement in the municipality of Guadalajara.

Are you truly dead, Río Santiago? Have we killed you?

Today, we come to honor you, to feel the pulse of your current and the energy of the water you carry. we come to not let ouselves forget that if you die, Río Grande Santiago, we die with you too.

Rio grande santiago was presented at Salon Acme no. 8, 2020, in México City.