Ángel Poyón
Born 1976 Comalapa, Guatemala
Lives and works in Chi`xot (San Juan Comalapa), Guatemala Maya Kaqchikel

The hand, the foot of our brooms,
The hand, the foot of our hoe / our hoes 2025
coconut leaf fibre, carved wood, steel, paint
Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
Courtesy of the artist 

For Ángel Poyón the words his grandparents would share at the start of planting season, “Ti k’asoj ri iwäzadon, kixe’awäx” (wake up your hoes and go sow), now serve as a broader motivation for his role as an artist in tending to his Kaqchikel culture. 

In The hand, the foot of our brooms, The hand, the foot of our hoe / our hoes, the spiritual and political power of everyday brooms and shovels, their shafts carved with fists raised in defiance, is awoken. Simultaneously functional and ritual objects, The hand, the foot of our brooms, The hand, the foot of our hoe / our hoes gives these 40 brooms and 40 hoes voice to confront the issues of food sovereignty felt keenly by Guatemala’s Indigenous Mayan populations since the onset of colonisation. 

A leading agro-exporter in the global economy for generations, the Guatemalan administration has been eager to expand its export commodities, despite large-scale agriculture being a primary driver of inequality and food insecurity for Indigenous Guatemalans, 40% of whom live in extreme poverty. With monoculture plantations occupying much of the country’s most cultivable land, many traditional and self-sustaining farming practices are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. In reclaiming these tools as symbols of resistance and renewal, Poyón seeds a future rooted in cultural sovereignty and collective survival.