DELILAH MONTOYA
EL SAGRADO CORAZON
ABOUT THE SERIES:
A College Arts Association Professional Development Fellowship and the University of New Mexico Southwest Hispanic Research Institute funded this work. Exhibited in venues such as the Smithsonian International Gallery and FotoFest 1994, it has also traveled with international shows to Japan, the Soviet Union, and France. The work is part of numerous permanent collections such as the Smithsonian, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Julia J. Norrell collection. The work was reviewed by Asta M. Kuusinen in her doctoral dissertation, Shooting from the Wild Zone: A Study of the Chicana Art Photographers Laura Aguilar, Celia Alvarez Muñoz, Delilah Montoya, and Kathy Vargas.
This collection of collotypes portrays Albuquerque’s Chicano Community. The series explores the manifestation of the Sacred Heart as a cultural icon that is embedded in the religious fabric of Chicano culture. Based on Montoya’s research and her Mestiza perspective, it is concluded that this Baroque religious symbol expresses shared cultural religious patterns that connote a syncretic relationship between European Catholicism and Aztec philosophy. The Baroque Sacred Heart in the Americas is an icon that resulted from an encounter. It is not purely Indian in content and never completely European in its form. Rather, it is a hybrid of two diverse cultures that clashed and bonded at a particular historic moment and created the foundation for religious syncretism.
This visual investigation of a cultural icon moves away from the traditional “objective” approach to reveal the hand of the photographer in relation to the community that was being depicted. In representing the Sagrado Corazón, the community was invited to collaborate with Montoya in the realization of the project. This collaborative project documented the manifestation of the heart as a cultural icon within the participating community. The alliance resulted in a magnificent display of creative interdependence that validates the Sagrado Corazón as an integral part of the Chicano collective conscience.
