The Blood and the Rain

Yael Martínez

Through narrow, winding, and treacherous mountain terrain, ancestral communities in Guerrero, Mexico travel on foot for 50 kilometers, or about 31 miles, to reach their sites of ritual. Once there, they perform rain rites, processions, dances, animal sacrifice, and other indigenous spiritual practices of gratitude to the earth to ensure good harvests and full rivers, and to protect against water scarcity and the ravages of heat.

More than performance, these rituals represent a philosophy of life that holds in balance the wind, the sun, and the rain. From the moment of creation, there has been a reciprocal relationship between the earth—generator of life—and the meteorological phenomena associated with the agricultural cycle. These phenomena are thought of not only in their natural forms as winds, clouds, rays, springs, and rivers, but also as forces inhabited by spiritual beings with whom it is possible to establish a ritual relationship. Believers receive life-sustaining material and spiritual goods from them through dreams, invocations, prayers, and offerings.

“The Blood and the Rain” is a multimedia collaboration by photographer Yael Martínez and graphic artist Orlando Velázquez, who have been welcomed by the Nahua communities to observe their practices. Because the rituals themselves are not allowed to be photographed, Yael and Orlando sought a way to document and honor the community’s cultural expressions without exposing or violating them. Combining photography with drawing, Yael and Orlando have generated a new visual form that portrays the physical and metaphysical layers of the rituals and the relationships that exists between the people, their gods, and nature.

This project is made possible by The Henry Luce Foundation and is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Artist Bios

Yael Martínez

Yael Martínez is an Associate of the agency Magnum Photos.

Martínez has earned a number of honors for his photography, including the 2022 National Geographic Wayfinder Award; membership in Mexico’s National System of Arts Creators (SNCA); the 2019 Eugene Smith Grant; a Magnum Photos Nominee; and a fellowship with the Magnum Foundation’s Photography and Social Justice Program. Martínez also won the World Press Photo Contest in the region of North and Central America in the open-format category in 2022 and second prize for long-term projects in 2019.

In addition to his work for National Geographic, Martínez has been widely published in Aperture, the New York Times, Time, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, Vogue Italy, Bloomberg News, and Vrij Nederland. He has exhibited in solo and group shows in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the U.S.
Orlando Velásquez

Orlando Velásquez is is an award-winning graphic artist and illustrator from Guerrero, Mexico whose work explores concepts of the sacred and the profane through the lens of Guerrero’s current state of violence and death. A graduate of the Visual Arts Center in Morelos, his work has been exhibited at Fonca, the National Fund for Culture and Arts, and the Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca.

Organizations

Magnum Foundation

Magnum Foundation expands creativity and diversity in visual storytelling, activating new audiences and ideas through the innovative use of images. Through grant making, mentorship, and creative collaborations, we partner with socially-engaged imagemakers exploring new models for storytelling.

This program was produced with the support of Magnum Foundation’s Counter Histories initiative supporting projects that creatively reframe the past to engage with urgent questions of the present and future.