The Chupacabra Takes Your Sins Away

“At dawn on February 5, 1996, the Chupacabras visited the town of Amacueca Jalisco. This is the first reported case of the Bloodsucker so far in 1996. Its victims, 16 sheep." - Newscast TV Azteca 1996

“At dawn on February 5, 1996, the Chupacabras visited the town of Amacueca Jalisco. This is the first reported case of the Bloodsucker so far in 1996. Its victims, 16 sheep." - Newscast TV Azteca 1996

From 1994 to 1996, Mexico goes through a period of many changes; the free trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico, the Zapatista uprising, the assassination of the PRI candidate for the presidency, Luis Donaldo Colosio, and an unprecedented economic crisis of ambiguous responsibility between former president Carlos Salinas and the incumbent president Ernesto Zedillo. During the same period, on highly rated television channels such as Televisa and in large-circulation newspapers such as La Prensa and Excelsior, a mythical, fantastic, and surreal being was revived for several weeks: the Chupacabra (legendary cryptid that attacks animals in rural areas. Its name comes from the hematophagous habits of the creature who sucks all the blood of its victims).

This project was born from the hypothesis that the Chupacabra myth served as a smokescreen for the Mexican government in a stage of deep social, political and economic crisis, not only in Mexico but also in Latin America. Starting from the staging and based on a media fiction, I try to explore and reveal the mechanisms of the construction of this social phenomenon.