Dj set: Cumbias and Other Sounds for the HarvestMiguel Cinta Robles

(MX)

Music & Sound Creation

A milpa is a polyculture. Throughout Abya Yala (the Americas), maize has been sown alongside beans, squash, chiles, quelites, and many other varieties. Alongside these crops, rituals have also sprouted: songs, flutes, and percussion to call for rain or celebrate the harvest. There is cumbia campesina, son de la caña, and the album Siembra by Willie Colón and Rubén Blades.

Now let us imagine a DJ set as a mix of sounds and rhythms that, like herbs and seeds, invite us to dance and cultivate a sonic milpa in a shared space.

Miguel Cinta Robles (Oaxaca de Juárez, 1997) studied at ENPEG “La Esmeralda” (Mexico City) and UNA (Buenos Aires). His practice weaves together stories and modes of work across agriculture, sculpture, and land-based pedagogies. He is the founder of Domingo de Cerro, a project of workshops and hikes through the mountains of Oaxaca and other Mexican states that seeks to understand the political contexts of these territories through collective walking. He collaborates with Terreno Familiar, an agroecology and bioconstruction project focused on food sovereignty through community-based work in Tlalixtac de Cabrera. His work has been presented at Proyectos N.A.S.A.L (Mexico City, 2024), A4 Foundation (Cape Town, South Africa, 2023), and the Carrillo Gil Art Museum (Mexico City, 2022). In 2023, he was a recipient of the PECDA Oaxaca grant.

Photo Credits: Miguel Cinta Robles