Tabla Periodica — De Arturo Morales Link

This transformation is deeply political. Morales, likely working in the tradition of Mexican muralism and conceptual art, understands that the periodic table is not neutral. It is a document of colonial science—a taxonomy imposed upon nature by European men. By renaming and recontextualizing each element, Morales decolonizes the table. His version includes elements that Mendeleev could never have imagined: Memoria (Memory) as a fundamental particle of the Andean world; Resistencia (Resistance) as a transition metal that never corrodes; and Maíz (Corn), placed proudly at the center of the table where carbon usually sits, signifying the bio-cultural spine of Mesoamerica.

Critics might argue that this is not a periodic table at all, but a political pamphlet. That is precisely Morales’ point. He argues that all tables—periodic, periodic of income, periodic of life expectancy—are political. By blurring the line between scientific diagram and altar, he creates a new genre: the testimonial grid . His work has been displayed not in museums, but in community centers, union halls, and Zapatista caracoles, where it serves as a pedagogical tool. Children learn not the symbol for lead, but its story: Plomo (Lead) as the bullet in the journalist’s chest. tabla periodica de arturo morales

Philosophically, the Tabla Periódica de Arturo Morales asks a radical question: What if we organized the world based on suffering and dignity rather than protons and neutrons? It challenges the viewer to see chemistry as a form of poetry. When Morales pairs “Hydrogen” with Hambre (Hunger), he reminds us that the lightest element fuels the stars, yet a child in Chiapas starves under the same sky. When he pairs “Oxygen” with Olvido (Forgetting), he suggests that what we breathe is also what we choose to ignore. This transformation is deeply political

The aesthetic of Morales’ work is deliberately crude yet evocative. He paints on recycled amate paper or discarded mining maps, using cochineal red (extracted from insects) and indigo blue (from native plants). Each “element” is illustrated not with electron shells, but with micro-narratives: a campesino’s hand, a disappeared student’s silhouette, a monarch butterfly wing. The table is incomplete, with deliberate gaps—gaps that represent the lives lost to impunity, the species extinct due to climate change, and the languages silenced by conquest. These voids are not failures of science; they are accusations. That is precisely Morales’ point