Mexico, or how Richard lost his work boots and other tales.

As usual, I’m going to begin before the beginning, at that moment of genesis, not my genesis, just to be clear, but the genesis of an idea. 

October 2023

I’m stood in Paris, , it’s raining, It’s Paris in October. I’ve just found out that the Lantern Procession, in Aubervilliers, we’re supposed to be collaborating on, has been cancelled, some chimera of heighten security risk and rugby. 

We came along way to be here, but next to us stand a group who came much further, Arte Sustentable of Morelos, Mexico. The fragility of public work is never as heightened as ever when you’re jet lagged to all hell, now stood on a distant continental plate with no parade. 

Our hosts, old friends and most importantly in this story, a beautiful pivot point between two communities, are the mighty Les Poussieres, it means dust people or something? That’s less important, they’re great, we’ve been making cool things with them for well over a decade. They handle the difficult situation with a characteristic combination of subtlety and tour de force, we take small offerings of Lanterns into the street together, with minimal fuss and create a micro procession of individual lanterns, making their lonely way home, in some Rachel Whiteread way it is the gap where the lantern procession should have been. 

On a side note it’s around this time we meet Sandy, you’ll hear a lot more about her later, you’ll like her, but for now she has only a walk on part, a wildly efficient ghost dancing through the background of the main narrative. 

Sadly this part of the narrative ended in a No Country for Old Men kind of way, the security situation in Paris didn’t change, we danced and then we went home. 

March 2025 

I’m sat at Manchester Airport, Terminal 2 with Richard Redwin & Siobhan Mcaleer, waiting to board the first of two flights, a grand total of 13 hours at 36000 feet in the air, final destination, Mexico City. 

Yeah lots changed since the first bit, neither ourselves nor Arte Sustentable were content leaving the opportunity to collaborate by the wayside. So we found a way, via The British Council in Mexico and others, to meet in April, in Cuautla, Morelos, Mexico to create, what else, a Lantern Procession. 

In the hot? 

We had questions, many questions, but let’s jump back to another airport, we’ve landed at Benito Juarez international airport, Mexico City, like Mexico for real, I’m not sure whether its the fact that I’m roughly 2km higher above sea level than I’m used to but there’s something truly elating about standing in a mystery bus station on a distant continent. 

We have been corralled by Lucia and the aforementioned Sandy, Lucia is cauldron of nervous warmth, the architect of this collaboration, her persistence and patience is key to this reality existing. She has waited at the airport for us, the first of many beautiful guides who will hold our hands through this story. Over the course of our trip she will give so much of her time to carting us around, I hope she knows how much we appreciate her. 

We take a coach, a taxi and then a car for three hours into the Mexican night, which is now 6 hours later than the British night time we’re used to, bush fires creep across the surrounding hills, speed bumps hinder any sort of true momentum, eventually we reach our beds for the next few nights, in the tiny pueblo of Zacualpan de Amilpas. 

The moon is sideways.

We sleep. 

Ours days in Zacualpan are glorious, it is a picture book of small town Mexican life, organic, surrounded by fresh cucumbers and tomatoes real in a way reserved for childhood memories, where things taste proper, fruit comes from trees. Zacualpan contains a lot of tastes, from the drink that shares the name of the town, the salt and the citrus dancing with the mescal and the tequila, the ever flowing river of Modelo, the Chapulines, salt and chilli coated cicadas paired perfectly with the beer, Zacualpan tastes like everything. 

Every morning the blossom of the Jacaranda fills the courtyard, we drink and we tell stories and me make plans, we catch up with old friends and we make new ones but these days pass quickly and before we have fully acclimatised to Zacualpan, we move, to Cuautla. 

Compared to Zacualpan, Cuautla is a whole different meso-american ball game altogether, a distant cousin of Stoke, water at it’s heart, all that grit and sexy working class charm, an absolute heart of gold and flooded with amazing humans doing their best for their city, but sadly long running security issues and violence spilling over from warring cartels has created a city that deserves more. It’s here on the streets of Cuautla that the most important part of the story takes place. 

Every morning the unshakeable Sandy ships us in from the outskirts of the city to, well wherever we need to go, she understands all languages under the sun and she can pretty much do anything, for the main section of the story Sandy is our guide, she is Poseidon keeping these three daft British ships safe as we bob around, sticking out like sore thumbs in small town Mexico, she finds us safe bars and restaurants, she translates, she drives, she takes Shiv to the pharmacy, she basically keeps us alive for the 10 days we spend working on the procession in Cuautla. 

The first three days in Cuautla are spent with the core group that will become our Lantern Team, they have gathered to create giant lanterns with Richard, they come from all corners of Morelos creative life, they are cool, we are very sweaty, it is 37 degrees, they have much better hats than us. There are many great characters here, Bibis and her lighthouse of blue hair, and sister Selma are huge presences, Balam and the dazzling young men in their perfect headwear, Joaco & Edeyvi and their beautiful puppets, Mich the Iguana queen, Danielle and her eyes constantly flooded with wonder, So many names, so many amazing artists and humans coming together to make, wait let me check my notes, a specifically poisonous type of scorpion, a giant fish and a Chinelo… If you want to google Chinelo and then come back to the story I’ll leave a little space here so you know where you left off. 

Off you go. 

Right are you back? Yeah we like Chinelos a lot now, during this time Joaco and Richard develop a new builders makaton, and successfully discuss increasingly difficult processes without a single word of the others language, this is a real skill, one Hilary was exceptional at, I envy it as I bumble my way through with a combination of depleting charm and pointing. Shiv just connects, her warmth is obvious whatever language you speak, it takes me a little longer to prove I’m more than a wooden Englishman. So back to the lanterns, it’s 35 degrees plus most days here, I hear Cuautla affectionately referred to as the hottest city in Mexico, I agree in a way only a Brit can, it is indeed, too hot. The lanterns come together with a bizarre hibiscus fuelled haste, everything in Cuautla is liquid, from the sweat dripping off us to the litre upon litre of Fresca fuelling the creation, Cuautla’s water is magic, it heals, as does the Modelo. 

April 2025 

Everything is more organic here, I ask to see the bamboos we will be using to carry the lanterns, it is tradition in the UK to carry our lanterns atop bamboo poles, but the bamboo is as far from its previous life as a plant it could possibly be, shiny and hard and quality controlled beyond recognition, Sinai, husband to Barbara, the master of all trades, Mexican equivalent to Peter Wilshaw, leaves with a machete. Three hours later he returns with bamboo, chopped from a mates field, a production line appears of Marcos and Joaco, men with machetes working the bamboo into shape, Edeyvi, Bibis, Paty and Barbara amongst other smooth out the bamboo, clean it and prepare the hooks. It’s a real process from field to form. 

There are many other characters in this part of the story, I hesitate to turn this into War and Peace and try and introduce them all one by one but if I do that I in turn must give them all life, backstory, a reason to be here, so I will settle for this, they are all here, nearly 100 volunteers from various organisations in the state of Morelos, each a beating heart, making mountains move, in the shadow of a worryingly smoky volcano. 

We eat at roadside taco restaurants in plastic garden chairs. Barbara is queen in these streets, they all know her, all of the women know her. 

I bet you’re glad it’s time for the parade. 

Myself and Marcos have measured the streets with a huge bamboo, checking the power line clearance of our colossal lanterns. I am convinced it will work. A football match tries to happen outside our base of operations, it quickly dissolves as the river of Cuautlans carves past the centre circle, 370 Lanterns, over a thousand people are now one torrent, in complete control of the darkened streets of this beautiful, violence plagued city, our Chinelo has been joined by REAL Chinelos, and they are a sight to behold, somewhere between a mariachi and a whirling dervish, a constant,  jumping and spinning in time to the music, an energy endemic of the Mexican soul, something deep in the cultural life rooted in showing the world that you are here, and you are alive, regardless of what has been thrown at you. Everything in Cuautla is fluid, it is blood and it fuels a beating heart as big as the moon. The parade ends in ecstatic dance as the iguana tears its own limbs off in pure release. It is unlike anything I have ever seen, I am very much alive. 

The next day we leave for a brief visit to Tepoztlan home of the gods, and in recent memory, the tourists, mostly Mexicans escaping the big city. This is also our gateway to the city as our coach leaves in a few minutes to take us back to the city in the sky. We say goodbye to Sandy, and head on our way, we meet Manuel (an excellent film director) and his brother Christian (an equally excellent designer) and yell Mátalo at some Luchadors, eat excellent food and look at Olmeca Heads and the Aztec Sun Stone, Mexico City is the sky, the oxygen is thin and everyone flys through the sky in acrobatic fashion. As will we as we board the long flight home. 

They also have a massive flag, 

Mexico loves flags

You know the Eagle on the Nopal, that’s the cactus thing, was….

Maybe that’s a story for another day. 

Big Love 

Martin