This painted work comes from the women of the Iskonawa community of Chachibai in the Ucayali region, near the Callería river. The designs are hand-painted using the yacoshapana bark and riverside clay. The patterns on the textiles are an extension of what used to be their body paint and the decoration on some artifacts from their material culture. Despite these traditions not having been transmitted over a long period of time, young women from the Iskonawa village have recently shown interest to register and re-learn the designs, as well as to continue drawing them on the products they make today.
We believe in long term relationship building with individuals and their communities who have consented to sharing their knowledge with us and the public. As multi-generational migrants, locals and foreigners, we seek to nurture a mutual understanding of the realities, ancestral and present, with our Indigenous collaborators through our practice in order to create didactic audio, visual and written representations of their ancestral knowledge for the benefit of the Indigenous people. Below is an open work of this documentation.
Photography: Davis Torres / Tui Anandi / Mike van Kruchen
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