Jill Randall – Mexico

My second lecture to students and staff whilst in Mexico, at the Faculty of Art & Design, Autonomous University of Mexico, at Xochimilco, in the city’s southern suburbs. I met Maestro Antonio Morales Aldana, Professor at the Faculty, several staff and many students who came to the lecture. This was followed by a tour of Read more

Here are some pictures of the Real Del Monte townscape – the mines are embedded within the townscape of rust colours, corrugated iron organic buildings, slopes and terraces.Its a gritty, textured sculptural landscape unlike anything I’ve encountered before.                                   Read more

Images of mining are everywhere in Real Del Monte. Photos of mines sit alongside photos of the cathedral and scenes of the mountain landscapes here. El Serranillo Restaurant, owned by the wonderful Noble family with long Cornish ancestry has photos and mining artefacts like miner’s lamps and helmets proudly displayed in the restaurant. Mining is Read more

My visit to the Museum of Mining in Pachuca yesterday began with a video about the history of mining in the area. It was in spanish with rather inaccurate english subtitles which were unlike anything I’ve heard to describe mining previously. It described the emotional and spiritual impact of the experience of working in mines Read more

  This was the first of 3 lectures which I am giving in Mexico as part of my Santander Award-to forge links for academic projects and exchanges in the future. The Art Institute is housed in a former mine, San Cayetano, in the centre of Real Del Monte in a beautiful campus. As Real Del Read more

Today I visited the quirky Museum of Mining in Pachuca, a large city in Hidalgo State which is riddled with former silver mines.There is a Methodist chapel (brought by the Cornish), plus pasty shops and union jacks and english names in evidence. The Museum has an historical archive and mining library for study which could Read more

Today I met Mexican artist, Siglinde Langhote in a restaurant in Real Del Monte. Siglinde is an installation and sound artist and is doing a PHD and some teaching at a University in Cholula. What was really fascinating is that Siglinde has been doing work about miners and mining !! Creating sound works from data Read more

Visited the second important mine site in Real Del M0nte today-Mina Acosta-set in a dramatic wooded valley.It looks an impossibly difficult site to mine.The site includes a long underground tour, and there is a Cornish Beam Engine house like you might see on the coast near Lands End.Oddly out of context here.The site is planted Read more

Finally got to see my first Mexican mine today-Mina Dificultad – actually a German rather than a Cornish mine, but majestic and very impressive. Its now a museum and heritage site and has been lovingly restored.Many of the mine sites seem to be quite manicured compared to ones I’ve seen in Europe.Especially odd and interesting Read more

Explored Real Del Monte for the first time today, one of Mexico’s ‘Pueblo Magicos’, or ‘Magic Towns’, and was invited. with the Cornish Delegation, to a ‘Charro’ or Rodeo. Its a fascinating place, a layered landscape, with the old mines embedded within the landscape rather than dotted around separately. Its a rich and complex landscape.There Read more