Category: Mexico

Confined Bodies, but Free Souls. At last.

by JC Agid 2 Comments

Interview with Author and entrepreneur Vanessa Serrano 
Free online meditation workshop
April 1-7, 2020 (link to register at the end)

‘When I bared my soul it seems you did not hear‘
Joe Jackson | Body and Soul

Singer and songwriter Erykah Badu recently posted on Instagram a drawing of a person seated in a lotus position. “If you can’t go outside,” the caption read, “go inside.”

“A sound advice,” wrote Diane Von Furstenberg who shared the post @therealdvf.

‘If you can’t go outside, go inside’ is exactly what Mexican author and entrepreneur Vanessa Serrano—who has developed her professional work as a path to search for her own purpose—invites people to focus on.

“I believe we should take today’s opportunity to observe our minds,” Vanessa told me in a phone interview.

Next April 1st and for seven days, Serrano is offering an online and free workshop in Spanish (both live and through videos) called Healing Detox and Spiritual Awakening. (details and link below the interview).

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A Hug to Humanity

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A Hug to Humanity
Fire-chat with Saskia Niño de Rivera, founder of Reinserta in Mexico

Saskia Niño de Rivera was the first of the Vital Voices Gala evening’s honorees to walk back on stage at Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center Opera on April  24th, 2019.

The Mexican activist went straight to Hillary Clinton, and without hesitation, hugged the former Secretary of State and co-founder of Vital Voices, a global foundation launched in 1997 to support women who advance economic opportunity, increase political and public engagement, end gender-based violence and promote human rights across 180 countries and territories.

A few moments before, the audience saw a video of children playing in Lucha Libre disguises (the famous masked Mexican wrestlers). One them, drawing, is heard wishing: “I want to go to the zoo; when I am big, I want to be a fireman; and when I am really big–yeah–if I am really big, I will be The Hulk.” 

A childhood fantasy, indeed, except this child cannot even go to a zoo. This child is one the 700 children born and raised in a Mexican jail.

Saskia Nino de Rivera and Hillary Clinton | (c) Lancer Photography | 2019
Saskia Niño de Rivera and Hillary Clinton | (c) Lancer Photography | 2019

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A Requiem for a Car

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A Requiem for a Car
Fire chat with Mexican artist Betsabeé Romero, special guest of Art Paris 2019

A group of bicycles is carrying on their “shoulders a dead body made-of-steel,” moving a car through the large avenues and narrow streets of Paris to its final resting place right in front of Le Grand Palais, next to the Champs Elysées. “A Requiem for a Car,” a Jaguar to be exact, is a symbol of speed, power and wealth. This invitation to slow down a humanity obsessed with haste, consumerism, and individualism is Mexican artist Betsabeé Romero art installation to celebrate the 2019 edition of Art Paris. Romero, whose art has been exhibited throughout the world and is now part of the permanent collections in North and South American as well as European museums, plays here with some of her favorite themes: automobiles and globalization. 

A spanish version of this interview with Bétsabée Romero was published online by First Class Life

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FRIDA’s (back) in New York … as KAHLO

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CELEBRATING FRIDA KAHLO IN NEW YORK

At least until May 12th. First, at the Brooklyn Museum with the exhibition “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving.”

But also, through the Mexican painter’s influence on art and fashion with the presentation of artist’s Hormazd Narielwalla’s last series of Frida collages at Art on Paper New York March 7-10.

Finally, throughout a city, which was the first to publicly recognize the art of Frida Kahlo: in New York during the late 1930s where she became a full-fledged artist.

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The Three Sins of Mayra González

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WOMEN CAN HAVE IT ALL | SERIES | THE THREE SINS OF MAYRA GONZALEZ

A manager at Nissan Mexico once told Mayra González that she was very talented and would have a great career in the industry, but “you have three sins,” he added: “You are young; you are a woman; and you are Mexican.”

Fast forward more than 15 years: Mayra González was eventually promoted in 2016 at age 39 to the top job at the Japanese car company’s fourth largest business unit, thus inducted to the very exclusive club of female CEOs, a mere three years after Mary Barra became the first woman appointed CEO at General Motors.

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