Alasitas- Chicken Manifestation
by Cristal Zeballos

August 1st - 7th
A sculptural installation at Hen Institute.

Manifestation is ubiquitous in the span of our religious and cultural practices, an inherent product of innate desires and aspirations. Whether through action or belief, the practice of manifestation is supplemented through physical objects that serve as tools for visualization and focalization.  One such cultural practice of manifestation is the month-long Alasitas festival in Bolivia.  

Alasitas is a month-long festival that sells miniature embodiments of desired manifestations for offering and blessing to the Ekeko figure, the Bolivian God of Abundance. The blessings made to this figure would be promised to you in the coming year. The word Alasitas comes from one of the predominant indigenous languages, Aymara, meaning “buy me”. The festival is representative of the syncretism of both indigenous and Catholic tradition with the culture of modern-day consumerism and the overall fecundity of humanity. Probably the most representative figure of these notions sold at the festival is that of the chicken, traditionally representing love and abundance in the shape of a rooster or a hen.

The purpose of this installation is an exploration and celebration of the Artist’s ethnicity and Bolivian culture as well as a  passion for advocate chicken-keeping. These chickens serve as physical embodiments that act as a vessel for your manifestations; a visual reminder of the values, wishes, and goals to put in the forefront of our thoughts. The Artist’s renditions of these chickens serve as representations of human life and moments of interlude; creating a sense of interrelatedness and attachment between ourselves and the life cycles around us, a grounding element that can bring us clarity and relativity to our thought processes and manifestations. 

Expanding upon and connecting both meanings and representations of the chicken and characteristics of universal manifestations across cultures such as family, motherhood, protection, bravery, self-love, prosperity, etc.. 

Cristal Zeballos: cristalzita@gmail.com

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