Annual Burning of La Vieja

Join in this now annual tradition born in Truth or Consequences, NM created by the Art Curating Group B3 This week for the Burning of Effigy ‘La Vieja’

La Vieja is back marking a successful community art project that has blossomed into an annual event in Truth or Consequences, NM. On Black Friday, November 29th, a new 2019/20 La Vieja took her seat in the women’s restroom at the Truth or Consequences Brewing Co where she spent a number of weeks collecting the emotional waste, wishes, and dreams of those who encounter her before being burned January 24th by a community ceremony at Rotary Park in Truth or Consequences.

Backstory – Upon the opening of the Truth or Consequences Brewing Company a group of women who live in Truth or Consequences came together under the name Brewery Bathroom Babes (B3) to curate the women’s bathroom into an evolving art project with participatory themes that change every 3 to 6 months. In winter of 2017, B3 created La Veija, “the old one,” a near life sized cloth doll meticulously constructed to withstand the pining of messages women were invited to attach to her. A basket of tokens: stones, feathers, bookmarks, inexpensive jewelry, words of wisdom, were left – by women for women – with the understanding that as something is released there is a vacancy in the soul that needs to be filled. The tokens represent the exchange well after it has been made.

In 2018 weeks after women who had experienced La Veija had taken to heart the invitation offered, having scribbled all manner of words on the tiny white paper squares leaving them firmly pinned to The Old One, the women of B3 realized something was left undone. They planned a ceremony to burn La Vieja, a final purging and cleansing of all that had been released in the old year.  Local residents, men and women, were invited to participate in scripting and enacting of a ceremony that took place at Truth or Consequences Rotary Park along the Rio Grande River.

This year, 2019/20, La Veija has been reconstructed by B3 and was placed in her seat where she she again welcomed the dark matter, hopes, joys, wishes and dreams, of those who pass through Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. She’ll be burned in a community ceremony at Rotary Park in Truth or Consequences on the new moon January 24th. The event is free and open to all.