Lapiztola

Lapiztola was founded in 2006 by Roberto Vega and Rosario Mtz following a seven-month political uprising in Oaxaca City, sparked by the state governor’s violent response to a teachers’ strike, which transformed the city’s walls into powerful sites of protest. The name “Lapiztola” reflects the group’s mission through clever wordplay, blending the words “lápiz” (pencil) and “pistola” (pistol) to symbolize their use of art as an evocative tool for generating powerful political and social change.

Mostly working with stencil and serigraphy, Lapiztola creates street art to protest and visually communicate with society, the police, and the local government in Oaxaca. Their public art pieces bring awareness to problems often ignored by the mainstream press, such as the dangers imposed by drug cartels and their cult-like labor rings, the ecologically and socially damaging use of genetically modified corn by the American corporation Monsanto, and the widespread grief of the many mothers who are systematically condemned to wait for decades to bury the bodies of their disappeared children.

Through all their public projects, Lapiztola maintains that fine art should not be regulated to gallery spaces, but that it should proliferate in the streets in order to enact tangible change in the world. Lapiztola has collaborated on a range of projects globally, including: La Bienal de la Habana, Cuba, El Maiz es nuestra vida; Michigan University, Por la Sangre Derramada; Valparaiso, Chile and Spain, Laberinto de Miradas; Mission Cultural Centre, San Francisco, Más de 50.000; and many more.