Tiahue Tocha

2021 Rasquache group exhibition, Visible Records Gallery.
Rasquache is an artist residency and collective of artists in San Francisco Coapan, Cholula a community on the slopes of the Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl volcanoes in the state of Puebla in Mexico. Coapan, as everyone calls it, is a place like many in Mexico and in the world marked by migration. Currently more than half of its population lives in the United States; In this inextinguishable fracture, the yearning for the return and reunion is permanently kept alive.

We have not been able to return to Coapan for the last two summers because of the pandemic. Having our movement restricted by forces larger than we are, being kept away, is a kind of parallel with the ongoing reality of migration for many. In Tiahue Tocha (let’s go home) Colectivo Rasquache continues its project of engaging with transborder reality through material and social invention, this time with particular attention to brickmaking as a homage and timeline of Coapan. As construction methods in Mexico have evolved, brick-making, which, along with farming, was the primary occupation of many from Coapan who have since migrated to the US, gave way to cement block. Cement blocks are not made from local materials unlike red bricks or adobe bricks.

Photos by Calista Lyon