<b>Exhibition Opening: Images of San Ysidro at the Maxwell Museum of

September 9, 2003

Exhibition Opening: Images of San Ysidro at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology

The University of New Mexico's Alfonso Ortiz Center for Intercultural Studies and the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, present an event and exhibition opening Images of San Ysidro, on Saturday, Sept. 13, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Maxwell Museum and the Hibben Center located directly south of the museum, off University Blvd. between Martin Luther King Ave. and Las Lomas Rd.

The event is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Boeing Company, and the Maxwell Museum Association.

The work of the santeros exhibited, expresses innovation, complex use of materials and variety of ways to interpret one important santo of New Mexico - San Ysidro the patron saint of farmers and agriculture.

Processions and fiestas devoted to San Ysidro celebrate the annual blessing of the waters in communities using acequias, irrigation ditches built during the colonial period throughout the middle and upper Rio Grande Valley. It expresses how inhabitants of New Mexico have endowed and continue to endow land and water as "place" with significance.

Rituals about "place," are enacted in many locations and are expressed and represented through songs and stories that narrate feelings and memories. The San Ysidro ritual complex ties together multiple communities into a cultural region, and has persisted and reinvented itself in these places both by accommodating changes as well as by conserving and expressing tradition.

Highlights include music by El Grupo Sabor, a special screening of the Milagro Beanfield War at 11 a.m., a special procession of the Santo San Ysidro with choral singers from Antonito and Sedillo at 12:30 p.m. and guest presentations at 1 p.m. by Cultural Specialist Raymond Bal; Miguel Gandart of the Communication and Journalism department, UNM; Enrique Lamadrid of the Spanish and Portuguese Department, UNM; Santeros Felix Lopez and Joseph Lopez; and Tey Nunn of the Museum of International Folk Art.

Refreshments will be served and children's activities will be available. There will also be a special sale in the Maxwell Museum Gift Shop.

Parking is free and unrestricted on weekends.

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