Oct. 11--At the end of last month, citizens in cities around Mexico gathered to commemorate and protest the disappearance of 43 students from a rural teachers college in Ayotzinapa one year ago. In a country wracked by violence, the case of the disappeared students continues to resonate: a story of everyday, working-class Mexicans attempting to make a better life for themselves, who were smothered by drug war violence -- that of the government and of the cartels (two purportedly opposing groups who too often appear to be working in tandem).
In this environment, the 43 have become more than just a number, they have become a symbol of everything that is wrong with Mexico's corrupt ruling classes, a breaking point for a people who have had enough. (For some terrific insight into the case and the way it has affected politics in Mexico, be sure to read journalist and novelist Francisco Goldman's series in the New Yorker.)
As with protests elsewhere -- consider "Umbrella Man," the icon of last year's pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong -- the Ayotzinapa manifestations in Mexico have inspired a frenzy of art-making: impromptu installations, murals, banners, masks and costumes. These borrow as much from popular culture as they draw from traditions of Mexican folk art.
And altogether, they tell an interesting story: The 43 may be gone, but they will not be forgotten.
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