Piñata: The Joyful Destruction of an Icon is a thesis research that explores the piñata as a crafted vessel made to be destroyed – a paradoxical object that embodies celebration, identity, and colonial trauma. Through an autoethnographic lens, the project unravels the piñata’s layered meanings using theories of performativity, abjection, and queered failure. By combining historical research, material analysis, interviews with piñateros, and performance, the thesis reveals how the piñata operates as a “homing device,” an object that holds collective identity while simultaneously inviting its own joyful destruction.

 

What begins as a colorful paper shell becomes a stage for intergenerational rage, cultural pride, and ritual transformation. Rooted in Mexican Popular Arts yet shaped by hybrid histories – Chinese, Aztec, Spanish, Italian – the piñata is reimagined not as a passive tradition, but as a queer, malleable artifact. Its destruction becomes an act of resistance, healing, and rebirth: a performative gesture that reclaims heritage while challenging the boundaries of craft, celebration, and self.

 

This research was developed as part of the Master’s thesis in Contextual Design, as a component of the graduation project at Design Academy Eindhoven.