Marilyn Boror Bor is a Maya-Kaqchikel artist from Guatemala. The Zurich-based curator team Selina Fülscher and Wagner&Friends invited the artist and her partner, the graphic designer Jimena Pons, to Zurich.
The invocation of ancestors and the fruits of the earth are elements of ritual Maya culture and also feature in Marilyn Boror Bor’s contemporary artistic practice, in painting, printmaking, photography, installation and performance. Her works are projects focusing on self-empowerment, the analysis and preservation of the thinking and language of the indigenous Maya-Kaqchikel.

At the end of the hotel residency, Marilyn Boror Bor and Jimena Pons will present in the studio works and investigations which were produced during their stay, including a ‘chocolate’ creation with cacao beans from Guatemala, cast in Swiss cement. Guests in the studio are invited to light a candle and add it to the ritual circle made up of cacao beans, yarn, flower petals, spirits and candles to commemorate the deceased, ancestors and the cycle of nature.

Jimena Pons, Marilyn Boror Bor and Esther Eppstein in the studio. Photo© Seline Fülscher

Open Studio in the hotel studio on Saturday 5 August 2023

In the hotel’s art collection:

Marilyn Boror Bor ‘Peinar las raíces IV. Rituales Sepultados (Combing the roots IV. Buried Rituals)’ 
3-piece object, concrete with yarn (white, yellow, orange), 2023