Lent 2022.

FRIDA’S CHURCH

Part visualization, part imagination this photo essay was taken inside the Parroquia San Juan Bautista at the center of Coyoacán, the historical neighborhood in Ciudad de México. THIS was one of the first churches ever built by the spaniards on mexican soil (CA.1522) and stands over the ruins of a school for noble children of the aztec empire.

This was the church where Frida Kahlo would be baptized AS Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, and where she prepared for her first communion. Here, one of her sisters would get married and her zealot catholic mother would come regularly to attend mass. meanWhile, her father withstood as a faithful atheist and his footsteps frida would quickly follow.

she describes, In her own words, how at 10 years old along with her sister: ”I took part in religious rituals. For a whole year they made us Cristi and I, attend the teachings, but we would run away and go eat tejocotes, membrillos and capulines in a nearby garden.”

Frida would later write on the back of a photograph where she is dressed in white with lace gloves, and rosary beads at hand: “Friduchita in 1920 when she made her first communion, 10 years old. IDIOT !”

In March,1954 during an interview with Journalist raquel TibOl, which would be her last, Frida described: “my mother was a great friend to me, but the whole religious thing never united us. My mother went down in history for religion. WE HAD TO PRAY BEFORE EVERY MEAL. While everyone else focused on themselves, Christi and I would make eye contact, struggling to contain the laughter… For twelve years my mother won the battle against me, but by thirteen I was already a raging leftist.”

As artists and beings our ideologies, creeds and allegIanceS evoLve and mutate. These believes Mold us as individuals as much as our works of art. veils we all carry.

as I paced down the isles of this church I was given visions of Heart-OPENED chests, blood dripping limbs and mutilated bodies. Are these apparitions Of Catholic Saints, Aztec GODS or Frida-born? I simply could not tell. But Their veils were only one color.

- Villa Coyoacán, CDMX, Mexico.

“I am a communist being.”
—Frida Kahlo

References:

"México, Distrito Federal, registros parroquiales y diocesanos, 1514-1970", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JMY7-VC3 : 23 February 2021), Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo, 1907.

"México, Distrito Federal, Registro Civil, 1832-2005", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QG4T-B77P : 20 February 2021), Magdalena Frida Cármen Kahlo Calderon, 1907.

Helland, J. (1990). Aztec Imagery in Frida Kahlo’s Paintings: Indigenity and Political Commitment. Woman’s Art Journal, 11(2), 8–13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3690692

Kahlo, F., & Herrera, H. (2020). Frida Kahlo: The last interview and other conversations /cFrida Kahlo ; introduction by Hayden Herrera.