From 2 July - 12 August, La Mayetería by artist Roman Lokati will be on display in our Cafe.
La mayetería is a traditional form of agriculture in southern Spain, deeply rooted in the province of Cádiz, particularly in the town of Rota. Its name comes from the month of May, a key time for harvesting, and from the figure of the mayetero: the farmer who worked the land with dedication and knowledge passed down through generations.
This series of works, created in acrylic on canvas, is conceived as a tribute to those individuals who, from dawn until dusk, tended their crops with patience and respect. Tomatoes, onions, pumpkins, and other garden produce become symbols of a way of life deeply connected to natural rhythms. The mayetero, with a body bent toward the earth and hands as the primary tool, embodies an intimate relationship between human beings and their environment.
In these pieces, that connection is transformed into visual memory, preserving the dignity of agricultural labor and the beauty of the everyday.
A note from the artist:
My work gathers and reconfigures images of the mayeto alongside objects, materials, and plants that belong to this everyday universe. Rather than pursuing a documentary representation, I sought a sensitive approach to gestures, traces, and presences that sustain a way of life. Tools, vegetal matter, and fragments of the environment function as extensions of the body: they speak of effort, repetition, time, and affection.
Through image-making, I construct a poetic archive in which the rural is reclaimed as a space of knowledge and resistance. Mayetería thus appears as a practice that challenges contemporary speed, proposing instead another temporality grounded in care and attention.
At its core, this project reflects on transmission, identity, and belonging. It is an attempt to preserve not only an agricultural tradition, but also a way of being in the world.