May 8 – June 13, 2026

SMALL GALLERY

Claudia Medina

NAGUALA (An Offering)

Naguala is an immersive video and sound installation that explores the rich Mexican tradition of nagualismo—a spiritual and cultural worldview rooted in communication, transformation, and interconnection. The installation reimagines the boundaries between the human and non-human, inviting viewers into the realm of the Naguala, where animals, plants, earth, cosmos, and ancestral spirits intertwine.  

Claudia’s work seeks to untangle tradition and culture, and how this connects to the non-human world, and intergenerational relationships. At the heart of Naguala is a desire to decentre the human and re-story our existence beyond hierarchical frameworks. I’ve been especially drawn to deepen my understanding of Nahua knowledge—not as folklore or mysticism—but as a relevant and vital worldview rooted in connection, reciprocity, and transformation.   

Naguala emerges from personal inquiry into her mother’s home community of Tecomitl, Momoxco—known as the “Tierra de los Naguales.” In search to understand why this came to be. The resulting work challenges colonial interpretations that cast nagualismo as evil or dangerous, revealing instead a healing, poetic, and cosmological practice of becoming. In Nahua tradition, becoming a naguala means studying movement, medicine, the stars, and the cycles of life and death. It’s about relationality and regeneration. Through immersive sound and video, Naguala invites the viewer to dissolve the skin-bound self and step into deeper entanglements with land, time, and the more-than-human world. 

Presented as a three-channel video and two-channel soundscape, Naguala is designed to envelop the viewer in a continuously shifting visual and auditory environment. The moving images—ritualistic, symbolic, and textural—are choreographed across three screens to evoke the transcendent nature of a transforming Naguala. The sound design, composed of layered field recordings, voice, and musical elements,  creates a mesmerizing sonic landscape that feels both ancient and otherworldly.  

The Naguala guide challenges the viewer to reconsider fixed notions of self and reality. Through the Naguala’s haunting inquiry—”Where are you outside of your skin?”—the work becomes an invitation to dissolve the boundaries between the physical and metaphysical, the personal and the cosmic, the living and the dead.    

Visually and sonically cohesive, the project is intended to be installed in a darkened gallery space where the three synchronized video projections form a panoramic tableau, with sound moving directionally between two opposing channels. This setup fosters a meditative and immersive environment, encouraging slow contemplation and embodied engagement.    

Naguala is not only a personal exploration of cultural memory rooted and teachings, but also a shared space for transformation—an offering to the community to reconnect with cycles of nature, spirit, and ancestral knowledge through the language of art.  

(Soundscape In Nahuatl, English and Spanish) One channel composed by Sophia Sanford.