Global Press Journal Connections: The World in Photos

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico

Mexican and foreign artists draw chalk works at the central plaza of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas state, Mexico, during Colors of Chiapas, the third international festival of street painting. The festival was organized by the group Bonbajel Mayaetik, which translates from Tzotzil, an indigenous language of Chiapas, as Mayan Painters. The festival's theme was Chiapas's biodiversity.

Photo by Marissa Revilla

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico

Guadalupe Álvarez (right), 24, and Muriel Holzer, 25, members of the bicycle collective Rueda Libre, or Free Wheel, repair and assemble bikes at the collective's workshop in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas state, Mexico. "Many people are surprised, and they ask us if we know how to fix bicycles or not," Álvarez says. "Fixing bicycles is not something from another world. We're capable of using tools, inflating tires."

Photo by Adriana Alcázar González

Chilil, Chiapas, Mexico

Micaela Vázquez Ton, 38, and her daughter Teresa Martínez Vázquez, 14, carry water in clay pots from a nearby well in Chilil, a community in Chiapas, Mexico. The well is a public resource for the whole community, and families turn to it during the dry season or when the water pipes are not working and local springs don’t have enough water to go around.

Photo by Adriana Alcázar González

Mexico City, Mexico

María Elena Morales Osorio, 50, (kneeling) and Israel Salinas Ortiz, 25, (standing) welcome new dancers to a weekly dance performance in Mexico City’s Zócalo, or city center, that celebrates the people and traditions of the eras that precede the Spanish colonization. The group meets on Fridays and Saturdays. Every 20 days, participants dress in traditional clothes, in accordance with the Aztec calendar’s 20-day month. Morales Osorio has been the dance’s caretaker for 20 years.

Photo by Mar García

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico

Rodrigo Aguilar Martínez displays a document that was issued by Pope Francis and that names Aguilar Martínez bishop of the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas, in Chiapas state, Mexico. Aguilar Martínez took office on Jan. 3 with a public religious ceremony and a Mass attended by thousands of mestizo and indigenous parishioners. The ceremonies were conducted in a variety of languages, including Latin, Spanish, Tzotzil, Tzeltal and Chol.

Photo by Adriana Alcázar González

Mexico City, Mexico

Following a free concert by Ricky Martin, workers from a company called Nueva Imagen disassemble the stage at Mexico City’s Zócalo, or center square. The concert was attended by some 100,000 people. Martin was originally scheduled to perform in September but was forced to postpone because of the deadly earthquake that devastated Mexico City. Nueva Imagen, a sales and rental company that specializes in event structures, used 60 workers and took four days to remove the stage.

Photo by Mar García

Mexico City, Mexico

An ice resurfacer cleans and smooths out the 4,000-square-meter (43,055-square-foot) skating rink at the Zócalo, the main public square in the center of Mexico City’s historic district, after closing time. Skating is free for 40 minutes per attendee from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, and the facilities provide safety equipment for all attendees and access for people with disabilities.

Photo by Mar García

Mexico City, Mexico

Armando Tejas, 48, secures three Christmas-themed piñatas to the roof of a customer’s car at the Mercado de Jamaica in Mexico City, where he and his wife have sold piñatas for the past 28 years. The colorful, hollow papier-mâché sculptures are often associated with Mexican celebrations, where they are filled with candy and fruit, and partygoers are blindfolded and encouraged to break the piñata to release the treats for all the attendees.

Photo by Mar García

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico

Lucía Esperanza Martínez, 12, (standing) dressed as the Virgen de Santa Lucía, or St. Lucy, and road a float in honor of the virgin’s feast day in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Seated are María Leticia López, 3, in the lap of her cousin Santiago López, 15, and Marío Pérez, 8 (right). Worshippers in the city honor the saint annually; floats are common sights during the celebration.

Photo by Adriana Alcázar González

Mexico City, Mexico

Carolina Urrutia Maravillas, 35, cleans and arranges Christmas decorations outside the tent where she and her family have been living after the Sept. 19 earthquake that struck Mexico City and damaged their home in the La Planta neighborhood.

Photo by Mayela Sánchez

Mexico City, Mexico

José Noé Pérez, 37 (left), and Héctor de la Cruz Flores, 39, push a load of old iron on an avenue in southern Mexico City. The two buy old iron used in construction and transport it on foot to resell it, Pérez says.

Photo by Mayela Sánchez

Mexico City, Mexico

A statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe watches over pilgrims who spent the night on Dec. 12 at the atrium of the Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe, a Catholic sanctuary in the north of Mexico City, dedicated to the Virgin. Every year on that date, the eve of the saint’s feast day, thousands of the faithful come to the basilica to express gratitude to the Virgin. Many camp out until midnight, when a serenade is sung to her and a Mass is celebrated.

Photo by Mayela Sánchez

Mexico City, Mexico

Welder Ricardo López, 25, works at the central Mexico City site of a historic building that is being restored. The building dates to Mexico’s viceregal period, the architectural era encompassing the nation’s colonial history, beginning with Hernán Cortés’s conquest of Mexico in 1521 and ending with the Mexican War of Independence, which concluded in 1821. Artifacts, remains and temples belonging to indigenous Mexican culture before the Spanish conquest have been found underneath several buildings in the surrounding area of Mexico City’s historic center.

Photo by Mar García

Mexico City, Mexico

Juan Velásquez, 31, washes the windows of the two-story MacStore at the base of the Torre Reforma, a 57-story skyscraper in Mexico City. Using a harness, a bucket, a brush and rags, Velásquez and the other window washers will take two days to finish the two-story building, after which they will clean the other 57-stories of the main tower.

Photo by Mar García

Mexico City, Mexico

José Alfredo Ramírez Pérez, 52, a local shaman, waits in central Mexico City for a passerby to request one of his cleansing rituals, which he says remove negative energies. Ramírez Pérez also gives life advice to people who seek it, using his knowledge of pre-Hispanic gods, ancestors and rituals. As a child, he learned the indigenous language of Náhuatl from his grandparents.

Photo by Mar García

Mexico City, Mexico

Nazli Regina Torres, (second from right) 7, plays amid lights and fog at an installation celebrating the 10th anniversary of the designation of the Central University Campus of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Nov. 23 event was organized by UNAM’s architecture faculty.

Photo by Mar García

Mexico City, Mexico

Juana Victoriano Cruz, 58, and her granddaughter Guadalupe Osorio Maya, 10, sell traditional Mazahua clothing at a stand in Mexico City’s Plaza de Santo Domingo. Cruz, who belongs to the Mazahua indigenous community, was taught at age 12 by her mother how to make the traditional garb. She takes one week to make a blouse and two days to make a skirt.

Photo by Marissa Revilla

Mexico City, Mexico

Members of the Cuerpo de Guardias Presidenciales, an entity of the Mexican army that protects the country’s president and his family, former presidents, secretaries of state and visiting foreign functionaries, swept and cleared billboards from the path leading to the Altar a la Patria, a mausoleum in Mexico City’s Bosque de Chapultepec, or Chapultepec Park, where Andrej Kiska, president of the Slovak Republic, began his visit to Mexico on Nov. 21. Kiska laid a wreath at the mausoleum, also known as Niños Héroes Memorial, which is dedicated to the young cadets who died in the 1847 Battle of Chapultepec during the Mexican-American War.

Photo by Mayela Sánchez

Mexico City, Mexico

Nora Castro, 39, takes photos of a hanging fiber sculpture illuminated with color-changing light, during the fourth Festival Internacional de Luces, the International Festival of Lights, at the Centro Cultural del México Contemporáneo, a cultural center in Mexico City. This was one of 21 illuminated art pieces exhibited across Mexico City for the Nov. 16-19 festival.

Photo by Mar García

Querétaro, Mexico

Ana Sofía Medrano, 6, (left) and Mario Alberto López, 7, dance at a “Domingo de Bailongo,” a downtown Sunday dance event that their families attend regularly. Every Sunday, residents of Quéretaro, the capital of the state of Querétaro, Mexico, enjoy the traditional gathering organized by the local elders.

Photo by Itzel Hervert

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexican singer Jaramar performs in a multimedia show on Nov. 4 at Mexico City’s Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris, to mark the release of her sixteenth album, “Sueños”. Jaramar is also a painter, illustrator and sculptor, and her album “El Hilo Invisible” was named Best Classical Music Album at the 2016 Latin Grammy Awards. The album contains Sephardic songs accompanied by the ensemble Cuarteto Latinoamericano.

Photo by Marissa Revilla

Mexico City, Mexico

Laura Mundo, 40, and her dog Miquiztli bond during an event in the plaza of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in the center of Mexico City. Miquiztli is a Xoloitzcuintli, or Xolo, a hairless dog breed originating from Mexico. To celebrate the Mexico premiere of the Disney/Pixar movie “Coco,” nearly 30 members of a Facebook group for Xolo owners gathered to show off their unusual breed. According to Mexican mythology, this breed accompanies their owners on the journey to the underworld, a central theme of “Coco,” which premieres on Nov. 20 in the U.S.

Photo by Mar García

Oventik, Chiapas, Mexico

An estimated 5,000 members of the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, or the Zapatista National Liberation Army, attended an Oct. 19 speech by María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, also known as “Marichuy,” in Oventik, a Zapatista community in Chiapas, Mexico. Marichuy, who has announced her decision to register as an independent candidate for the Mexican presidency, is the current spokeswoman for the Concejo Indígena de Gobierno (CIG), part of the horizontal governing structure proposed by the Zapatista movement.

Photo by Marissa Revilla

Mexico City, Mexico

Irma Mora, 54, (left) and Ernestina Treto, 55, who belong to the collective Zion Art Studio, paint final details on “Maconda,” a 78-inch “alebrije” that they and two other women spent two months crafting at the Fábrica de Artes y Oficios de Oriente, or FARO, a cultural center and arts and crafts school in Mexico City, for the city’s annual alebrijes parade and contest. Alebrijes represent fantastical animals and are usually made of papier-mâché. After local artisan Pedro Linares created them in the 1930s, alebrijes became a traditional craft in Mexico City. Linares made the first figures after falling ill and dreaming about the creatures, who shouted to him, “Alebrijes!”

Photo by Mar García

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San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico

Chilil, Chiapas, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Querétaro, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico

Oventik, Chiapas, Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico