Art / Work

Armonías Ancestrales

Workshops, pigments and projection after the fires in Bogotá's eastern hills

Year: 2024
Role: Creative direction and video mapping
With: Galería Santa Fe, Banco de la República
Communities: Communities of the OPIAC — Organización Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas de la Amazonía Colombiana (National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon)
Shown at: Miguel Urrutia Art Museum (MAMU), Bogotá (August 2024); Arts Building, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá (August 9, 2024); Museo del Agua, Universidad de los Andes 2024, Bogotá
Tools: TouchDesigner, Ableton Live, Max, Reaper, video mapping, natural pigments
Links: Project website

What it is

Armonías Ancestrales began as a response to the forest fires in Bogotá’s eastern hills. The first thing you think of is going out to reforest, and that was exactly what we didn’t want to do: some places need calm after a fire, not people on top of them. So the work was with people. Raising awareness and showing other ways of not harming the place: instead of going to plant where quiet is needed, training whoever wanted to come closer.

What we were after was bringing the whole feeling of the forest to several places. Reconnecting with the roots of local knowledge and of the territory, as a metaphor for connecting with our own roots and our own hills.

I was the creative director and I handled the video mapping. The project had more roles and a larger team: four groups working in parallel throughout 2024.

In the depths of the mountain, where the river winds, the roots sink into the earth, and through them flows the wisdom that keeps the balance. Our origins are lost in the mist of centuries, and we burn as much as the trees and the skies. In every drop that falls, in every shoot that rises from the ashes, hides the promise of a rebirth. In reconciling with our origins, we find ourselves reflected in the rawest and truest expression of nature, and in recognizing our existence as part of the whole, we will walk the earthen path with every step in harmony.

Process

Workshops. A process of reconnecting and understanding how the space was working: braiding spaces together through everyone’s care. Making pigments. Conversations with Indigenous communities of the OPIAC, the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon. Weaving workshops. And a sound and audiovisual work that kept changing over the weeks.

The team prepared between June and July 2024, one session a week: profiles and expectations of the people joining; interactive art with TouchDesigner and projection software; exploring sound, asking ourselves what mountains sound like; dry and wet pigments with turmeric, charcoal, iron oxide and natural oils on coastal cotton cloth; and a pre-rehearsal of the installation and performance. From the pigment session on, the four tracks —visual art, sound, performance and audiovisual— began working in parallel.

The software was TouchDesigner, Ableton, Max and Reaper. The rest was dialogue.

Team

Visual art: Juana Valentina Vargas Sosa, María Alejandra Montañez Losada, Alba Sofía Gracia Hincapié, Ana María Cortés Rodríguez, Mariana Moreno Segura.

Sound: Valentina Acosta, Verónica López Figueroa, Luis Guillermo Villalobos Espitia, Juan Felipe Fernández Medina.

Performance: Lina Sofía Zambrano Sarmiento, María Alejandra Montañez Losada.

Visuals: María Paula Londoño Hejeile, Juan David Sánchez Arévalo (also built the project’s website), David Andrés Vega Monsalve.

Workshop leaders: Isabella Siabatto (KAO), natural pigments workshop leader; Milo Martínez, ecosomatics workshop leader; Héctor Fabio Yukuna, ancestral companion and guide; María Alejandra Montañez Losada and Alba Sofía Gracia Hincapié, collective weaving workshop leaders.

Installation and teardown: Hernán Yamid Vaca Barrera.

Where it has been shown

At the Miguel Urrutia Art Museum (MAMU) in Bogotá: the two collective weaving workshops (August 8 and 15, 2024), the natural pigments workshop (August 22) and El renacer de las cenizas (Rebirth from the Ashes, August 23). The Armonías Colloquium, on the intersection of art, music and culture, took place on August 9 on the terrace of the Arts Building at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. A guided ecosomatics meditation closed the program on August 25.

Partners

Galería Santa Fe and Banco de la República.

Gallery

A long cloth hung from ropes in a dark room, dyed with yellow, red and black stains that draw a line of mountains; below it, dark wooden stools.

Detail of the dyed cloth: black and ochre smoke run across the cotton, charcoal lines like mountain ridges and red and yellow splashes in the left corner.

Hands stained with red pigment hold a tuft of dyed fiber hanging from a thread, over a body sitting on the dirt floor.

Crocheted fiber cords hang in front of a projection of red and orange clouds that fills the whole wall.

The room in half-light: a white cloth cocoon and several fiber weavings hang from the ceiling; on the floor, a mound of black earth inside a ring of mud, and visitors walking through the space.

A circle of black earth on the concrete floor, ringed by cracked mud; in the center, a white clay form like a hollow stump, and mud roots reaching out toward the edge.

Two performers dig with their hands in the mud inside the circle of earth. The audience watches, some sitting on the floor, some standing; behind them, the cloth dyed orange, black and ochre.

A performer lying face up on the turned earth, with green leaves pinned in her hair and her hands crossed over her chest.

A performer arches backward holding a fiber rope, in front of the cloth dyed yellow with turmeric and the woven cords coming down from the ceiling.

Two women kneeling on the earth: one pours water from a clay vessel and the other catches it in her open hand, next to a braid of red fiber hanging from the ceiling and a body lying in the background.

Wide shot of the room: a person in a black ruana and red headscarf watches two performers lying on the floor between circles of earth. Fiber weavings hang from the ceiling and the audience surrounds the scene.

Two people embracing, seen from behind; one has green leaves pinned in her tied-up hair. In the background, the cloth dyed orange and ochre.

A visitor photographs with a phone a net woven from natural fiber that hangs on the wall and casts its shadow on the white surface; in the foreground, another weaving out of focus.

David Vega, in a dark sweater with his glasses hanging from his neck, looks up smiling, leaning against the cloth dyed in ochres and reds.