Ever since man has been man in Mesoamerica, a volcano has signified and symbolized omens and uncertainty. In the indigenous worldview, the powerful volcanoes of the central Mexican highlands were not simply a threatening force of nature. Belief in an ancient god of fire preceded the conception of the volcanoes as living beings, differentiated by sex: the female Iztaccíhuatl and the male Popocatépetl. They were witnesses to the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in Great Tenochtitlán. If we could conceive of landscape in Mexican photography as a living, acting person, then to speak of psychological landscape would not be incongruent, but rather in keeping with an ancestral worldview. Metaphor as experience or experience as metaphor? For Rodrigo Oropeza, the majestic sacred volcano Xinantécatl ("the naked man" in Nahuatl), represents contemporary Mexico. Behind the mist, latent majesty. In spite of the extreme weather conditions, life flourishes. Incandescent stone as a cyclical regeneration or imminent gestation. The earth roars, and shakes, and the topography changes: incandescent rock, all-destroying, all-purifying fire; an eyewitness to our history... Omens or uncertainties? Or perhaps Mexico is no longer governed or sustained by what once gave meaning, life, structure, and order to its inhabitants?

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                                                                                                                                                                        Gerardo Montiel Klint