Facilitating Indigenous graphic language
Frida Larios is a typo-graphic artist from El Salvador (of mixed Indigenous ancestry). She holds a Bachelors of Arts degree from University College Falmouth in Cornwall, England, and a Masters of Arts degree in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London, England. While in London, she is a former Central American beach volleyball gold medallist, taught at the London College of Fashion and Camberwell College of Arts. She is currently an Adjunct Professorial Lecturer in Visual Literacy and Design Foundations at American University (SOC) and University of the District of Columbia (CAS).
Guided by community Guardians, her collective New Maya (Visual) Language(2008), The Community Buried by an Erupting Volcano (2014), Animales Interiores (2015) and Tree Codex (2019) titles, bridge and facilitate ancestral Indigenous visual languages, spiritual and graphical essence, through intercultural letters, symbols, textiles, stones, walls, trees, immersing and emerging from place, love and intergenerational community. The titles are based on the logographic principles of ancestral Maya and Nawa hieroglyphs. Larios’ murals, installations and ofrendas, are widely displayed in Washington, DC, and have been exhibited in Central and South America, Europe and Asia.
New Maya Language is a living workshop led by Guardians and Frida Larios, facilitating Indigenous graphic language through intercultural books, letterforms, icons, textiles, stones, walls, trees, immersing and emerging from Cosmo vision, collective wellbeing and trans-generational community. Frida talks about her work ‘The Community Buried by an Erupting Volcano’, as a special book narrated in three languages: Spanish (in green), English (in magenta), and as a bridge between the two, the evolving pictorial language, which she calls “New Maya Language”. As the story progresses, the logograms begin to replace words. These logograms are her original visual representations of words and concepts, a re-imagination of the images created by Mayan scribes of the classical period (300 – 900 A.D.) and a contemporary interpretation of Maya classical language.
Larios’ collaborative works and texts have been featured in AP News, Telemundo 44 Washington DC, Smithsonian Magazine (Online), BBC2, BBC Radio 4, Getty Images, Agence France-Presse (AFP, London), PRINT Magazine, The Daily Telegraph, ElFaro.net, Courrier International, TASCHEN, Thames & Hudson, and others.