Guadalupe Maravilla’s “Mariposa Relámpago" | Art21 "New York Close Up"

(suspenseful music)

(Guadalupe)
The name came to me very naturally.

I was in Oaxaca and I had a dream

that kind of shook me up.

I remember seeing a lot of butterflies

and lightning bolts together in the storm.

And that morning I got up,
I was at a red light,

and there were two abuelitas,

and they were talking about

how this healer would often
come and heal the town.

Her name was Mariposa Relámpago.

That's when I said,
"Oh, wow.

I just had a dream about
butterflies and lightning bolts."

That's where the name comes from.

"Mariposa Relámpago."

(wind whooshing)

(harmonica blowing)

This is spirits playing right now.

(harmonica blowing)

(gentle harmonica music)

(Guadalupe) Sound is really powerful.

There's a universal way
of experiencing healing,

and it's by using sound.

And everyone feels it.

Everyone that's alive feels it.
The plants feel it.

The animals feel it. The babies feel it.

I think everyone needs to heal something.

(bell chimes)

What's happening in the border
in the United States

is a major impact in who I am.

I was an undocumented unaccompanied child

coming from El Salvador,
escaping the Civil War.

I migrated here in the '80s.

For me, the border
is not just the physical wall

that's separating Mexico
and United States,

but a whole journey
that asylum seekers take.

(dramatic music)

A lot of the work
that I have done for myself

is to actually confront
those cities and those towns

that I traveled as an
undocumented unaccompanied child.

(suspenseful music)

The bus culture growing up in the '80s

was really big in El Salvador

because we would have
these blinged out,

formerly American yellow school buses.

I was fascinated by these buses

because they were highly decorated.

And I was obsessed
with looking at all the details,

all the shiny objects,
all the handmade things,

all the absurd things.

(bell chimes)

So the whole idea for me
came that I wanted

to bring a school bus
from El Salvador to the United States,

and I wanted to have
the same migratory path

that I had as a kid.

(suspenseful music)

(metal sounds)

(metal sounds continue)

In order to turn it to a gong,
we have to first flatten it out.

Like it has this giant ding here

and a few imperfections there,
but I think we can get it.

(birds chirping)

For me, it's always been important

to make my own instruments.

Even when I'm making sculptures,

I'm always really thinking about

using recycled materials for them,

and repurposing objects.

Thinking of animism and the energy

that these materials
hold is really important

to what I'm exploring.

(birds chirping)

(birds chirping intensify)

(birds chirping stop)

When I was a student in New York City,

there weren't that many role models
that I could look up to.

I realized that my teachers didn't know

what I had gone through

and how important healing was for me.

The main influence
that I had was looking back

at my ancestry, the Maya, the Curanderos.

Okay, go for it, Billy.

(Guadalupe) They were the healers.

They were the ones
that could write and draw and sculpt

and also create rituals.

Directly connected to them,

I was like,
"I want to make healing rituals."

(gentle harmonica music)

(harmonica music intensifies)

(Guadalupe) It's a vibrating bus.

It's a vibrating healing instrument.

(wind whooshing)

"Mariposa Relámpago"
has around 700 objects.

Every object has a meaning for me.

Part of the work is
to actually find the objects.

(bell chimes)

I was in Mexico City

and I saw a pair
of metallic silver slippers,

and it looked like a
child had been walking

for a lot of time.

I almost got emotional when I saw it,

and I felt the energy of the walking

and all the unaccompanied,

displaced children
that were traveling with me.

There's been thousands of people

that have experienced "Mariposa Relámpago"

in all these different cities
that it's traveled through.

I really wanted to bus to tour the border

as much as possible.

(wind whooshing)

(gentle music)

(crowd chattering)

Everyone, thank you for coming.

Think of being in the park
or being by the ocean

where you sit there
and just listen to the birds.

You don't have to be
an expert in meditation

to feel the experience.

Just listen to it.

(soft blowing sound)

(gentle ambient music)

(soft blowing sound continues)

(gentle ambient music continues)

(bell chimes repeatedly)

When I'm doing a ceremony

and we're producing sound,

it doesn't feel
like I'm even playing an instrument.

Sound can be used in different ways.

The power of "Mariposa"
can be felt around the bus,

but also inside of the bus.

You can sit or lay on the bus

and feel the vibration

and the healing qualities that it has.

(gentle music vibrates)

I had so many mixed feelings
going to the ceremony.

(gentle music continues to vibrate)

It was open to the general public,

but also we had border patrol agents

on the bus during the ceremony.

Being in Marfa,
an environment that is similar

to the same lines
that I crossed when I was a child,

I think I was in tears at some point.

And it's a very scary space.

There's certain roads you gotta show ID

and tell them that you're a citizen.

There's actually a blimp
that travels in the area

looking for refugees
to arrest them and deport them.

My community sees them
as very threatening,

but I realized that I
wanted to do a ceremony

for border patrol agents,

because it's not just about healing those

that have been hurt,

but also healing other
more complex situations as well.

(blowing sound)

(suspenseful music)

(Irlanda) The camp that I was working at,

it's a place where unaccompanied children

that cross the border,

first, they go
to the border patrol center,

and from there, they get sent to a camp.

They are just kids,

so it makes it very hard
to see them worried

and see their sadness.

They are some of the most resilient kids

I've ever met in my life.

(gentle music vibrates)

I was on the phone with my coworker

and I'm telling her about you.

"Dude, this guy, he's a grownup version

of the kids we were taking care of."

It's funny that you said
that, because

yesterday I was talking to law enforcement
that works at the border.

When she started talking to me,

she was talking to me like I was
that 8-year-old little boy

that she encountered.

You know?

She was like,
"Yeah, I wanted to embrace you,

I wanted to hold you, but I couldn't."

(bell chiming)

(bell chimes again)

(bell chimes again)

(wind whooshing)

(bell chimes again)

(bell chimes again)

(waves splashing)

(bell chimes again)

(gentle harmonica music)

(gentle harmonica music
in rhythm to the images)

(Guadalupe) As a child in El Salvador,

I would be constantly drawing
the New York City skyline.

So when I look at that skyline,

it just symbolizes the journey
through the United States.

(gentle harmonica music)

That journey still continues to this day.

(gentle music vibrates)

Healing is gonna be happening
for the rest of my life.

Sound is medicine.

(thunder)

(harmonica stops softly)

(wind whooshing)