Maihayuwit
Transmediale, Berlin
CANK
Sintonia, Berlin
Galilea Kirche
CANK
Sintonia, Berlin
Galilea Kirche
Film, 18’59’’
Original Music
by Felipe Salmon
(Dengue Dengue Dengue)
Original Music
by Felipe Salmon
(Dengue Dengue Dengue)
| Miguel Buenrostro, Maihayuwit, Film at transmediale 2026, CANK, All Photos by Mirka Pflüger |
|---|
( Maihayuwit, performed live at Sintonia, 2025)
| Miguel Buenrostro, Maihayuwit, Film at Sintonia 2025, Galilea Kirche, All Photos by Lucia Alfaro |
|---|
The first time we arrived here, I didn’t understand what waited for us. My grandfather did, though he kept his thoughts pressed behind his skin. I knew there was something about this place—a weight under the air—I felt it as the sage roads pulled us forward, away from the rainy clouds and toward a constellation of mountains spreading in infinite directions and colors. The air thickened; a mountain stood up with a cloud covering half of it, and another cloud drifted toward us, eventually passing through us, dissolving in our bodies like a breeze.
Our grandfather asked us to walk in the curve of the serpent, and so we did. We were all carrying the serpent, and as we moved with its weight on our shoulders, we felt the mountains narrow the hours into—days, weeks, years—temporality shifting into the mountain’s own time. It moved us beyond the territory, into a time of multiple geometries, a time that stood still the way a migrant rock waits for the river to carry it into the waterways.
By the time we reached the first group of oak trees, we were exhausted by the heavy serpent, but we knew we had to continue as the dark cloud breathed over us. At dawn, my grandfather spoke with a sense of urgency. He placed four of us, one in each direction; I stood in the south, and my brothers and sisters in the north, east, and west. He stood at the center of the fire, waiting for the first ray of the sun to break through the open sky. We waited patiently for the clouds to move as we continued to feel a slight drumming in our hearts.
As the clouds drifted away from the mountains, a thin ray of light appeared, crossing the sage fields toward the opposite mountain group. The sunlight grew heavier, stronger, brighter. It came closer to us and stopped—until a first thin blade found my grandfather, just as he lifted his hands. The ray struck his palms, poured through him, and burst from his eyes and mouth. When the light beamed out of him, we knew we had finally arrived.
We stood before the cloud that had been following us, now resting on top of a tall mountain—we sang as we saluted the sage fields beneath its shadow. In front of an old oak tree, we watched the mountain open itself to us as the clouds dissolved into light. We hoped for the deer to visit us, to carry our grandmother’s murmur across the land.
We turned to look, and a flashing line was visible in the territory—stretching straight from east to west. In that shape, we aligned ourselves. As we observed, felt, and listened to the passing ray of light, it slowly crossed the territory in multiple fractal paths, heading toward the mountain, beaming in and out before us.
We placed one altar in the east, another in the west, arranged the circle, sat down—and the energy of the territory aligned everything.
My grandmother once lived on this side of the mountain, next to the oak tree shelter where hot water springs spit out of the earth. She had been asleep all this time, and she woke when we lit the fire; the beams of light became the mountain’s pulse. Unknowingly, we were standing at the foot of the sacred mountain. It was the energy of the land. We hadn’t arrived just anywhere. We heard our grandmother’s voice from the fire saying, “something is shifting in the earth”—perhaps a stirring in the spirit of the mountain.
During the night, after our grandmother went back to sleep, we spoke to the oak trees, the deer, and to the mountain itself. And as we watched the river take the land at dawn, we knew that we had arrived—we had arrived at Maihayuwit,
la serpiente de luz.
Watch film here
Our grandfather asked us to walk in the curve of the serpent, and so we did. We were all carrying the serpent, and as we moved with its weight on our shoulders, we felt the mountains narrow the hours into—days, weeks, years—temporality shifting into the mountain’s own time. It moved us beyond the territory, into a time of multiple geometries, a time that stood still the way a migrant rock waits for the river to carry it into the waterways.
By the time we reached the first group of oak trees, we were exhausted by the heavy serpent, but we knew we had to continue as the dark cloud breathed over us. At dawn, my grandfather spoke with a sense of urgency. He placed four of us, one in each direction; I stood in the south, and my brothers and sisters in the north, east, and west. He stood at the center of the fire, waiting for the first ray of the sun to break through the open sky. We waited patiently for the clouds to move as we continued to feel a slight drumming in our hearts.
As the clouds drifted away from the mountains, a thin ray of light appeared, crossing the sage fields toward the opposite mountain group. The sunlight grew heavier, stronger, brighter. It came closer to us and stopped—until a first thin blade found my grandfather, just as he lifted his hands. The ray struck his palms, poured through him, and burst from his eyes and mouth. When the light beamed out of him, we knew we had finally arrived.
We stood before the cloud that had been following us, now resting on top of a tall mountain—we sang as we saluted the sage fields beneath its shadow. In front of an old oak tree, we watched the mountain open itself to us as the clouds dissolved into light. We hoped for the deer to visit us, to carry our grandmother’s murmur across the land.
We turned to look, and a flashing line was visible in the territory—stretching straight from east to west. In that shape, we aligned ourselves. As we observed, felt, and listened to the passing ray of light, it slowly crossed the territory in multiple fractal paths, heading toward the mountain, beaming in and out before us.
We placed one altar in the east, another in the west, arranged the circle, sat down—and the energy of the territory aligned everything.
My grandmother once lived on this side of the mountain, next to the oak tree shelter where hot water springs spit out of the earth. She had been asleep all this time, and she woke when we lit the fire; the beams of light became the mountain’s pulse. Unknowingly, we were standing at the foot of the sacred mountain. It was the energy of the land. We hadn’t arrived just anywhere. We heard our grandmother’s voice from the fire saying, “something is shifting in the earth”—perhaps a stirring in the spirit of the mountain.
During the night, after our grandmother went back to sleep, we spoke to the oak trees, the deer, and to the mountain itself. And as we watched the river take the land at dawn, we knew that we had arrived—we had arrived at Maihayuwit,
la serpiente de luz.
Watch film here