ABOUT

Rufina y Remigio is a project created and executed by artist Mika Griego as an homage to and reconnection of  her Hispanic Northern New Mexican heritage. Named after family from Peñasco, New Mexico where Griego's have resided since the 1600's, this work is both personal and communal - a way of carrying forward the lineage of a culture, as well as honoring Mika's family history.
For many Norteños, Anglo racism fractured our cultural identity. Parents often withheld Spanish and other traditions from their children to protect them from punishment and shame. Rufina y Remigio was born as of an effort to resist the loss of the Northern New Mexican Spanish, a dialect unique to this region and deeply tied to our identity, among other cultural traditions. Additionally, this project aims to discover an honest history and celebrate our culture and collective resilience. 
The beauty in traditions aside, being Hispano is complex. Our culture is rooted in Spanish colonial and Indigenous Mexican traditions, yet it was also built upon and to the detriment of the land, knowledge, and ways of Native peoples who lived in New Mexico long before our ancestors arrived. 

My own family history reflects this duality of existing as both colonizer and colonized. Being biracial - half Hispano and half Anglo - these complexities are further amplified, and continue to shape my perspective, my practice, and identity. 
Graves decorated with flowers in a rural cemetery, with a fence, green grass, and mountains in the background under a partly cloudy sky.