Kené (meaning ‘design’, ‘enclosure’ and ‘path’,) is a type of artistic expression performed mostly by women from the Shipibo-Konibo community. According to Shipibo-Konibo narratives, women learned how to create their own designs by copying them from the body of a divine woman known as ‘Inka’: a concept which in Shipibo-Konibo language means ‘celestial’. The art of Kené expresses both the symmetry and asymmetry of the cosmic order, passing from the invisible to the visible world. To uncover this immaterial world covered by the Kené, it is needed to establish contact through the form of ritual.
Kené would be applied to all artefacts like clothing, ceramics, utensils, or the wooden posts of houses. During parties, people would usually paint their faces with Kené, and the men would have their arms covered and smoke tobacco with pipes decorated with Kené.
The patterns are an ongoing dialogue with the spiritual world and the powers of the rainforest, the rivers and the skies. The designs thus not only serve the purpose of ornamentation and decoration, they represent an entire communication system with plant spirits. While each piece is coming from the imagination of the individual, they are also based on the collective consciousness of the whole Shipibo tribe.
Dimensions (approximate):
black 18cm x 7cm, 24cm (neck drop)
red 17cm x 7cm, 24cm (neck drop)
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The Shipibo-Konibo have a rich and complex cosmology which have inspired their artistic traditions, notably in their ceramics and textiles. They are animists, and to them animals, vegetation, and non-biological beings have spirits, just as humans have two modes: material and spiritual.
