The HUMMINGBIRDS: The Indestructibility of Essence

What do the HUMMINGBIRDS, Ithaka, and the Phoenix Uprising Collection have in common?

THE HUMAN QUEST FOR MEANING

It's the oldest story we have. The hero's journey — at its core — is always about a person who doesn't know who they really are, goes through a “journey”, and comes back transformed with that knowledge. The Odyssey, The Lion King, and the Gospels. The structure hasn't changed in 4,000 years because the question hasn't changed.

We genuinely do live in a kind of fog. We inherit identities from our parents, culture, trauma (mostly from our parents), and conditioning, and most of us spend our lives performing a self we didn't consciously choose. Stories about "awakening" resonate with us because they name something most of us feel.

The Aztec myth that fallen warriors return as hummingbirds is a beautiful allegory, and it's a statement about the indestructibility of essence. The body is destroyed, the cause seems lost, and the empire wins. And then something tiny and powerful shows up the next spring and drinks from the same flowers. The soul doesn't go anywhere; it is only transformed. 

What connects Berta Cáceres, Sophie Scholl, the Mirabal Sisters, Nemonte Nenquimo, and Mahsa Amini is their bravery, and it's that every single one of them was surrounded by a system telling them “you are not who you think you are.” “You are smaller than you think.” “Your life is not yours.” Patriarchy, fascism, colonialism, and theocracy, these are all, at their core, machines designed to make us forget ourselves, our true origin.

And every one of these women refused to forget. That's the commonality between all the women in my HUMMINGBIRDS Collection and all the others I’ve made.

What I’m trying to make is a philosophical claim: that identity is not granted by systems of power, it's recognized from within. And what I’m also trying to convey to you through my creations is to recognize yourself when you put my earrings on your ears.

I want to tell you, “You already know who you are.”

I have a hard time articulating in language. I’m not the best speaker. (My mom told me I started talking not until I was 2 years old).  Language is linear. It moves in one direction, one word after another, and by the time you've finished a sentence, you've already lost something that was true at the beginning of it. It flattens.

But my beaded earrings are able to grasp everything at once. The color, the weight, the woman's name, the story, the grief, and the rebellion. All of it is present simultaneously, no hierarchy, and most importantly, nothing is lost in translation. The person who wears it receives all of it in a single moment of contact. 

There's a concept in Japanese aesthetics called “mono no aware” the bittersweet awareness of impermanence, the feeling that arises when beauty and loss come together. It can't really be explained.  It can only be experienced. Like when you're looking at a magnolia tree. When looking at your parents. And I'd argue my HUMMINGBIRDS Collection can give you this unique experience because what I’m encoding is essentially the unbearable beauty of a life that chooses truth over survival in everything I do wholeheartedly. 

A lot of artists describe their work as trying to say the unsayable. But my work is a bit different. I’m not trying to say it. I’m trying to give it to you. 

RECOGNIZE YOURSELF

Alejandra G.