Gina Isela Ayala

The concept was the idea of combining that with catholic religious wear as the Aztecs/Mayans were conquered by Spain who introduced and forced catholicism onto them. As these two things would not usually be merged on purpose, I decided to create a set of jewelry inspired by the merge of these two styles due to my culture I grew up in from both of my parents. My mother is from indigenous descent and happens to be from one of the only parts of Mexico that was untouched by the spaniards. My family from her side are very much in touch with their roots and indigenous culture versus my father who was brought up in a part of Mexico that was completely conquered and transformed by the conquest. He grew up extremely catholic and the last names from where he is from are all spanish. I grew up in the middle seeing and living both cultures within a country so I wanted to create something that could merge that. To do that I took catholic imagery and transformed that into a Aztec/Mayan style to have a combination of both in one set of jewelry.