MIGUELTZINTA SOLÍS | HOLE TECH

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Migueltzinta Solís, “Eclipse,” 2024

digital photograph (courtesy of the artist)

Migueltzinta Solís works in installation, performance, sculpture and photography on projects that often combine Indigenous and queer materialities. Hole Tech refers to the transportative possibilities of the ancient Mexican tezcatl, round pieces of obsidian glass used in ceremonial divination practices. A Chicanx artist, Solís draws upon the history and supernatural visioning properties of the tezcatl stone through photographs that reimagine Indigenous and queer space-time.

In ancient Mexico, obsidian stones, polished to a mirror finish, were used as instruments of divination. Practitioners looked into the tezcatl stone to read fates and divine the past, present, and future. For the new photo series within Hole Tech, Solís carries a similarly polished, round obsidian mirror to locations across Southern Alberta, peering into the histories of each site. Within the photos, some locations have their archival past reflected within the stone as a portal to previous times. In other photos, the artist and the camera are reflected within the depths of the tezcatl, hinting at the transporting and ensnaring abilities of cameras and their users. The camera lens and the tezcatl converge as dark portals between the here and now and the then and there.

Throughout the exhibition, the round obsidian is a point of visual tension where the darkness of the stone makes it appear as a hole in the ground, as if unrolled there in a cartoon. Solís presents one of the polished obsidian stones on a wall of faux wood paneling complete with graffiti that would be at home in a bathroom stall. The void of the obsidian appears like a knot in the wood or even a public glory hole. Similar to the tezcatl, crossing the boundary of the glory hole can also be a psychological form of transportation as one moves from a heteronormative present to a future place of queer euphoria.