Mariana Castillo Deball: Ixiptla Volume V Amarantus

$29.00 at Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The word amarantus, which gives name to this publication, comes from the Greek aμάρανθος, and describes a flower that never wilts. This plant is still used to prepare ixiptlahuan, which are anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures that are ritually consumed by some indigenous peoples in Mexico. The amaranth flower represents the persistence of the “uncomfortable objects” that Castillo Deball makes visible in her historical itineraries and approximations, and that keep speaking to us in the present. This…