Mexican artist aims to fill deserted hometown with clay figures

Last Updated: Sunday, August 5, 2007 | 11:49 AM ET
CBC Arts

A Mexican artist is working to "repopulate" his hometown with Picasso-like clay figures for an art installation that comments on the flood of residents leaving in a search for a better life in the U.S.

With the help of a $100,000 US grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, artist Alejandro Santiago has so far created about 1,500 life-sized clay figures out of the 2,501 he envisions for the project in his hometown of Teococuilco, located in Mexico's southern Oaxaca state. ~snip~

After spending several years in Paris, the artist returned to his rural hometown six years ago to discover it peopled mostly with young children and the elderly.

"Where are all my friends, my relatives?" he asked, before being told that they had all gone to the U.S. to seek employment as migrant workers. ~snip~

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2007/08/05/clay-figure-mexico.html