Welcome to

Castle Grounds

Scroll through the map to find these or these dots. Each contains a testimony: click to listen and click again to stop.

You will hear first the original statement and afterwards the translation to English.

Interactive map of voices portraying what monuments mean in two different geographies. One is Kumamoto castle in Japan and the other is situated in the municipality of Temixco in Morelos, Mexico. The one in Mexico, also a castle, was designed and constructed by a son to honor the memory of his deceased father’s most beloved tree (a ficus Moraceae). The father, a doctor, spent several years unjustly detained in the municipality’s segregation camp for citizens of Japanese heritage during WWII. It is known that he used to leave the camp at night to treat local patients for free in the town.

This map presents a series of local voices from people sharing what they recall from being physically in or nearby Kumamoto Castle. What each person mentions adds to the castle and community portraits. It also contains voice recordings of the doctor's son explaining why he decided to construct the monument for Temixco, how the monument is experienced by the community, and how the community and his father experienced the missing tree. It includes as well the voice of the former director of Biodiversity Conservation and research (UAEM) commenting on his perceptions of visiting Ficus (Moraceae) trees of Morelos, among other voices.

Booklet about the Mexican castle

Castle Grounds is a project by Annabel Castro

Japanese translations to English by MotoMoto coordinator Valeria Reyes

Developed as part of the program

Nativo: new monuments

for the museum

Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros-La Tallera

in conjunction with

artist-in-residence (AIR) MotoMoto

with the support of

Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo