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Graciela Iturbide (Photographer)
From the original Side Gallery exhibition text, 1988:
In this society where sexuality is accepted and encouraged, homosexuality is viewed as natural, even appreciated as a state where man’s strength and women’s sentiments are united. Graciela Iturbide
Graciela first went to photograph Juchitan at the invitation of the Mexican painter Francisco Toledo. It is one of the oldest of the millennia-old pueblos in Oaxaca, famous for its legends, myths and oral history. It has a population of approximately 150,000 people, mostly of Zapotec culture. This region beside the sea is a land of women, where most of the economic control, religious power and social influence is in their hands. The Zapotecan language has not withered away like so many other indigenous tongues. The clothing, customs and the structure of the social life have been tenaciously maintained by the community. The same force that built the pyramids and sent the women merchants of Juchitan to the furthest corners of the Aztec Empire to trade. The women of Juchitan are large, voluptuous and colourful. Even the oldest women dress with flair, confidence and no concession to hiding age or the western notion that old means unattractive. Graciela’s photographs capture their dignity, directness and tenacity. This is photography which falls within the documentary tradition but extends it into the arena of the constructed image, sometimes bordering on surrealism. Some of the rituals Graciela documents - for example those surrounding weddings, where virginity is stressed - are difficult to equate with a woman centred culture. However, it seems the women drink together all day during a wedding ceremony and often thwart the virginal ritual by substituting animal blood. They dress colourfully and act powerfully and men play an ancillary role. Bisexuality is said to be strong, it being quite common for women to have affairs with one another.