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Ancient myths and religious stories are more deeply embedded in our culture than you might expect. Often they form the basis for our standards and values as well as our world view. Renata Mirón Granados (1993) rewrites myths to question these standards and values. Her new narratives combine a variety of female characters with old and newly invented symbols and rituals. She raises questions about traditional role patterns, (colonial) oppression, the power of women, and the miserable ecological situation we have ended up in. These questions and stories are also the point of departure for her other work, which extends from hosting Radio Echo to organizing workshops during which she and other women work with textiles while exchanging experiences and stories about past, present, and future.
For Prospects Mirón Granados translated one of her fictionalized myths into a ceramic fountain depicting a water goddess composed of various creator goddesses and saints forgotten or overlooked by history. These include the Roman-Catholic Saint Bertha of Val d’Or, a 7th century abbess who discovered a spring during a drought, the fertility goddess Nehalennia, and the pagan goddess Bona Dea. The latter became a symbol of virtue in Roman-Catholicism and is depicted with a two-faced mirror. In Mirón Granados’s fountain the two faces are also symbolic for present and past, while the flowers are both toxic and healing. She thus wants to make the magical, vital, and simultaneously ominous power of water tangible in hopes of finding new possibilities for the future.
Text: Esther Darley
Translated from Dutch by Marie Louise Schoondergang (The Art of Translation)