Last Friday, June 28, the photographic exhibition "Con los pies en la tierra" was inaugurated at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, which contains 188 pictures captured by photographer Pierre Verger.

Pierre Verger was a renowned French anthropologist who made 3 trips to Mexico in 1937, 1939 and 1957 to take photographs of a cultural, architectural, and above all ethnographic nature. At the end of these trips, Verger collected a total of 5,000 negatives, of which 188 were selected to make up this exhibition.

The exhibition is divided into 3 sections; The first is called The General Line, which is mainly made up of images about community life, the ceremonies of indigenous religiosity, and the archaeological heritage of Mexico. Most of the images in this section make up the photographic book "Mexico, indigenous land" by Verger.

The second section is Days of Saving has a more symbolic character and mostly portrays the clothing and symbolism of the patron saint festival of Cuilapam in Guerrero in honor of Santiago Apostol, the festival of San Martin Caballero de Huixquilucan in the Estado de Mexico, the carnival of Huejotzingo in Puebla and the traditions of Holy Week in Itzapalapa.

Finally, the third section Memories of rural utopia is made up mainly of images captured in 1957, when the Mexican government sought to adopt a more modern face and began the homogenization of indigenous groups. By then, Verger was already an established anthropologist, and he directed his photography to capturing urban images and portraits of colleagues and close friends such as Diego Rivera, Dolores Álvarez Bravo, León Trotsky, María Izquierdo, Juan O'Gorman, among others.

In addition to the photographs, the exhibition includes an introductory video and a monumental projection on the dances of the festivals and dances that Verger documented. It also has a careful selection of ethnographic objects from the museum's collections, such as masks from indigenous groups such as Nahuas, Mixtecs and Zapotecs, a Mixtec costume used in the Dance of the Feather, and other objects that were objects of fascination for Pierre Verger.

This exhibition will be at the National Museum of Anthropology until September 29, and will close a two-year tour in Guadalajara, Monterrey, Veracruz and Oaxaca.

Sources: INAH.gob.mx, El Economista, and El Sol de México.