SKILLSET
· Market and User Research
· Prototyping
· Branding
· Blender
· Adobe Illustrator

Xolkán is a university Design project carried out over the course of a year in collaboration with two fellow students, Nicole González and Juan Pablo Moriyama. It was selected to be exhibited and sold at the 2023 edition of the Art and Design fair, Zona Maco. The challenge was to create a product inspired by Mexican oral traditions. We chose to highlight the significance of the dog, specifically the Xoloitzcuintli, and its connection to the Mictlán, underscoring the dog's role as a faithful and loving companion.

In brief, during the pre-Hispanic era, the Aztecs would bury their deceased alongside the dog that had been their lifelong companion. This was because, in death, the deceased had to prove to the gods that they were worthy of eternal rest by traversing the nine levels of the infamous Mictlán. For this journey, the dog played a crucial role as their protector and guide through these levels.

Xolkán is a pet food station inspired by the Xoloitzcuintli and its relationship with the Mictlán and its nine levels. We abstractly represented these levels in the materials we chose and in the product's morphology. Simultaneously, we aimed for it to serve as a sculptural piece.