Elías Silvano Hernández, Mayan Investigator

About

Elías documented and interpreted Voice of the Jungle, a dual reference to both the sounds of the jungle in Palenque, Chiapas, and a community radio station of the same name.

His work highlights how environmental sound—such as birds at dawn, shifting sounds at midday, and crickets at night—structures daily life and remains present in memory even after migration. He contrasts these rhythms with urban environments, where such patterns are absent.

Elías also recalls how radio functioned as a communication system in the jungle, transmitting messages between families through letters read over the air. In this way, his work connects environmental listening, community communication, and place-based memory.

His contribution positions listening as a form of cultural connection, linking sound, memory, and communication across distance.

Elías incorporated videos taken by his uncle from their family ancestral land of howling monkeys and pristine river scene with birdsong in the background. He also shared and credited another artist’s video of the Lacandon jungle at twilight to bring us the light of fireflies and the songs of crickets.

Archive

Internet Archive, in Ephemeral films

Licence or status

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, as the Internet Archive states it.

Credit

Elías Silvano Hernández and Adriana Camarena

Language

Spanish

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Tweens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed