Frida Larios
Biography
Frida Lariosis from El Salvador (of Maya-pipil and Spanish heritage), a small and impoverished country in Central America with deep ethnic and social identity crisis. In 2004, these overwhelming historical tensions inspired her to found a cultural movement called New Maya Language, and while creating it, to find her own indigineity. Larios’s unique system re-codifies a small part of the Maya mythic narrative through new graphic form. Her methodology speaks with and for today’s indigenous communities by borrowing directly from the logo-graphic principles of ancestral Maya scribes. For nearly 15 years she has dialogued diverse Mesoamerican narratives around the world – for children, youth and designers, through exhibitions, workshops, installations, books, artworks, and textiles; including the commission of theToronto 2015, Pan-American Gamesinaugural uniform and the Rio 2016,Olympic T-shirt line co-designs for the El Salvador olympic delegation; and temporary public murals' commission surrounding the Joya de Cerén (UNESCO World Heritage) Maya Archaeological Park Museum installed with the community in her native El Salvador.
Larios is Chair of Indigenous Advisory for theInternational Indigenous Design Network (INDIGO)atDeakin University and the International Council of Design. She co-foundedIndigenous Design Collective (Washington, D.C.), an organization that partners with theSmithsonian Latino Center for Day of the Dead celebrations in the USA. Larios is currently an Adjunct Professor in Art and Design at theUniversity of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., where she lives. She holds a MA in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London.