On the 16th of May 2025, we celebrated the inauguration of two exhibitions in co-creation with the Matsigenka community of Shipetiari; "Otiritantaganirira Kenkitsarentsi" which exposes a three-part mural project led by artist and colleague Davis Torres and Crafting the Field series 13 which is a sound composition by Melanie Dizon. Both these exhibitions are the culmination of many years of relationship between our team at Xapiri Ground and the members of the Shipetiari Indigenous community located in the district and province of Manu in the Madre de Dios region of the Peruvian Amazon.

We welcomed eight members from the community to join us for a special evening of sharing such as the new president of the community Juliana Araoz Kapataz, elder and storyteller David Ríos Rivera, Germán Italiano Ríos, Veronica Oyeyoyeyo Chiqueti, Javier Enrique Keimari, Alicia Ríos Aria, Hageo Pérez Peña, and Rogelia Diaz Turpo. All members have been instrumental in our work with the community over the years and we were honored to have had their presence in this special inauguration.

The evening began with a song of welcoming shared by Alicia Ríos Aria, a medicine woman from the Shipetiari community who helped guide artist Davis Torres during the development of the mural project around the stories and symbolism of the ancestral Matsigenka designs woven onto their traditional cloths as well as imparting her knowledge to Davis about their cosmological story of Kashiri (the moon).

Veronica (pictured above) shared her experiences with us about her and the community's participation in the painting of the mural which took place over the course of two years. For her, the murals are a reminder to never forget their weaving tradition.

David Ríos Rivera played a central role as the storyteller who inspired the part of the mural where artist Davis Torres interprets the tale of a man who was bitten by a snake or "Kenkitsarintsi Matsigenka Yatsikakeria Maranke". In addition, this tale was the inspiration for Melanie Dizon's sonic composition for Crafting the Field series 13 a multi-layered landscape of sounds from real and imagined spaces, guiding us into the forest of the “Terira Ineenkani” or “the Unseen Ones.”

Throughout the night, fresh masato was served as we engaged with our public and guests in a beautiful gathering of sharing the cultural identity of the Matsigenka. Please read more about these exhibitions and our longstanding work with the Indigenous Community of Shipetiari in the 'Living Narratives' section of our homepage.

A special thank you goes out to Patricio Zanabria of séPeru for connecting us to this community all these years, to artist and Xapiri Ground colleague Davis Torres for having led this project of visual storytelling, to artist and Xapiri Ground creative director Melanie Dizon for taking us on a sonic journey into the Matsigenka forest, and lastly to the Shipetiari Indigenous community for all the learnings, trust, and creative exchange over the years for which we will forever be students and family.

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