Una Noche en el Molino
Oaxaca, Mexico, 2013
Una noche en el molino. Un recuerdo de Georgina is a collaboration designed and organized by artist Brian Fernandes-Halloran between four artists and Georgina Cruz Cruz, a prominent mole chef and Oaxacan native. The artists, Maria Rosa Astorga, Gabriella Leon, Brian Fernandes-Halloran and Alberto Revilla have had individual discussions with georgina about one of her strongest childhood memories. The works responses to georgina's memory of that night and her memory has developed through her conversations with the artists.
This experience at the mill, from when Georgina was six years old, is part of her journey to become a force in Oaxacan food culture. She finds strength and inspiration in the kitchen. It is a place where she can connect to others through learning and perfecting recipes; where she can give joy to others through her craft. But the memories of the mill still linger; to this day she is afraid of milling the corn for her tortillas.
"I was six when my dad used to send us to the mill with my sister. She was nine and I was six. My mother used to make and sell tortillas and she required a lot of corn to make them, so she sent us to the mill. But my father would make mistakes with the hours, because we didn't have a radio or clocks. He would wake us up at 1:00 am or 2:00 am, but at that time the mill was not working; it started operations at 5:00 am. So we would arrive to the mill and we would have to wait. But at 3:00 am we would go back home to tell my dad that the mill was not operational at that time. But [on the path] when we would go from the mill to our house, someone used to scare us. There was a house, they moaned and it seemed as if they were talking to us. As if there was someone, but there was no one in that house. And on a big tree, a "Laurel" was the name, we could see someone in a swing, swinging in the tree. And we would get very scared. So I would hold my sister, because I was scared, and we would go back home. We would go back to them mill once more at 4:00 am, and my dad didn't believe that we were being spooked in the street. And I was very, very scared. My sister was also scared, but she, I would look, because the noise, turn to see, and she would cover her face, because it was very ugly, so I couldn't walk, I felt my body very heavy, because of the fear, and that was it, that happened every week when we went to the mill. And afterwards, little by little, I started getting upset and I didn't want to go to the mill anymore, and I left home. So my sister went alone to the mill. "
Georgina Cruz Cruz
Georgina Reading the texts
Georgina posing with the Brian's piece holding the unmilled corn over her head
