Paper by Luis Ricardo Ramos Hern谩ndez
Abstract: The so-called Fourth Transformation, driven during the presidency of Andr茅s Manuel L贸pez Obrador (2018-2024), promoted a profound renewal of Mexico's Free Textbooks, shifting from a model based on outsourcing to international publishing houses toward one centered on national pedagogical design. This article presents a critical self-evaluation based on image analysis dimensions grounded in Enrique Dussel's Aesthetics of Liberation (2018). We applied these dimensions to the self-analysis of a selected group of my most representative illustrations created for the new family of Free Textbooks. Through the analysis of five key images, it becomes evident how those incorporating symbolic elements related to local identity, ethnic diversity, collective memory, community creativity, and the reuse of everyday objects succeed in aligning with the fundamental principles of the Aesthetics of Liberation. These dimensions include visual narrative, symbolism, body representation, geographic space, landscape, and articulating culture and knowledge from a decolonial and liberating perspective.
Keywords: aesthetics of liberation, Mexico, aesthetic dimensions, aesthetic analysis, free textbooks
Conclusion
This exercise concludes by recognizing that the Aesthetics of Liberation is a powerful critical and theoretical tool, as well as an ethical and aesthetic orientation that can guide artistic creation—particularly in educational contexts, such as textbooks. This approach enables us to reconsider art—or "poiesis," understood as the act of making or creating—not merely as an aesthetic or decorative product, but as a political, cultural, and pedagogical act with the potential to transform subjectivities and social realities. Through the analysis of the five images, it becomes evident how those illustrations incorporating symbolic elements of local identity, ethnic diversity, collective memory, community creativity, and the reuse of everyday objects align with the fundamental principles of the Aesthetics of Liberation: decolonizing the gaze, making the marginalized visible, recovering ancestral knowledge, and building alternative imaginaries.
These images teach content and transmit cultural, emotional, and critical values beyond technical or disciplinary expertise. This approach to textbook illustration offers a way to think about education from a more just and inclusive perspective. Images are not merely visual accompaniments; they are active participants in learning and constructing cultural identity. Therefore, when illustrations are selected or designed with a liberating gaze, we promote an education that does not reproduce homogenized, colonial, or commodified models but recognizes and values the country's cultural and social plurality. In terms of its usefulness for artists, this way of thinking can be deeply inspiring and guiding. Although many artists may not have explicitly used the term "Aesthetics of Liberation," many have worked from related practices: the recovery of local myths and symbols, the use of everyday materials, critique of consumerism, and reinterpretation of the popular and cultural resistance through image-making.
The Aesthetics of Liberation thus provides them with a solid conceptual framework to reflect on their practice, give it political meaning, and situate it within a collective project of social transformation. Moreover, for artists working in educational, editorial, or community-based settings, this approach can help make conscious decisions about what images to create, how to narrate them, and what impact they wish to have on their audience. In this sense, the Aesthetics of Liberation is not only relevant—it is necessary for those who want their art not to reproduce injustice but to contribute to imagining a different, possible world. Ultimately, this exercise has found that the Aesthetics of Liberation is not merely an academic theory but a commitment to engaged, conscious, and transformative art.
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