"What happened long ago and which now is no longer done, another time it shall be done, another time it shall be thus, as it was in very distant times."
Codex Florentinus, fascimile edition, Mexico CITY, AGN 1969
The presence of ancient geometrical symbols in architectural solutions or decorations across the streets of contemporary cities in Latin America brings forward the question whether these visual expressions are shared as part of a common heritage, or if they manifest a subconscious desire to return to the primal shapes (present throughout the cosmogony of the ancient cultures). The images assembled under the title Bajo la sombra de la Pirámide (Under the Shadow of the Pyramid) differ in an important sense from my previous explorations in projects such as Pyramid and Neo Inca, which constitute a sort of catalogue of the different ways that pre-Hispanic art and architecture can operate as representation in the present and of the different ends pursued by this strategy. While it is true that the photographs continue to focus on pre-Columbian referents ―such as the typology of the pyramid―, in this case it is in a simplified, stripped-down form, viewed from a purely geometrical or chromatic standpoint. These images that evoke pyramids, mountains or volcanoes, are displayed on different constructions, on the façades of houses or buildings, almost like a chromatic set design that blends in with the architectural or urban scene. The images seem very commonplace and familiar, though the photographs of the series were taken in different countries across Latin America (Argentina, Cuba, Mexico and Colombia). The widespread presence of these shapes and its strangely recognizable familiarity may lead one to think of the survival and contemporaneity of these symbolic archetypes, that perhaps constitute a common denominator of identity, since they find a similar expression in very different geographical regions and contexts of Latin America.