Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA, November 4,2018 - Jan 27, 2019

With the Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain (a 16th-century ethnographic research study in Mesoamerica by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún) at its core, the Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón, is a series of bioregional maps and paintings about the intersections of history, color, medicine, and culture. Rodriquez spent 2017 in the field researching, testing, cross referencing, and producing artworks with Mexican and Pre-Colombian materials. She has painstakingly recreated colors indigenous to the Americas and painted on amate, a handmade paper made from the bark of wild fig and mulberry trees. Drawing heavily on Book 12 of the Florentine Codex, which documents the Spanish invasion and conquest of Mexico, Rodriguez makes powerful historical and visual linkages to present day ICE agents in helmets and body armor capturing residents and activists in communities and workplaces. She also examines scenes of Spanish vessels and weapons, and presents them as 2018 US Customs Border enforcement vehicles used to capture residents. These include unmanned drones, marine vessels, and land and air vehicles.

Text source: https://riversideartmuseum.org/exhibits/sandy-rodriguez-codex-rodriguez-mondragon/