Profile
Rosa Chávez is a poet and activist from Guatemala, belonging to the K'iche' Maya people on her father's side and Kaqchikel Maya on her mother's side. In her multidisciplinary work that spans theatre, performance, video and music, Rosa explores themes such as family, migration, rural and urban environments, and, most distinctly, the body. When she speaks of the body, Rosa speaks not only of her own physical ways of knowing the world as a Maya K’iche-Kaqchikel woman but also of the collective body from which she comes: her community, mother earth and the generations who have sustained life despite the forces that have attempted to diminish it.
Rosa is part of the editorial committee of the feminist newspaper “La Cuerda” and is also part of the team of the international feminist organisation JASS Mesoamerica. With more than 15 years of experience in community art processes and as an organiser and educator with the Mayan movement, Indigenous groups, women, and diverse communities inside and outside her country, she believes in the transformative power of art as a source of liberation and connection with her personal and collective history as an Indigenous woman. She is the author of several poetry collections, her work has been included in numerous anthologies, magazines, art exhibitions, plays, and has been translated into Kʼicheʼ, French, Norwegian, German, and English.
