ENCOUNTER OF RIVERS: EXHIBITION OF THE COLLECTIVE SOI NOMA

Encounter of Rivers. Text by Giuliana Vidarte.

The Soi Noma collective brings together a group of artists from the Shipibo-konibo people who currently live in the Cantagallo Community in the city of Lima. For this exhibition the artists Salome Buenapico, Dora Inuma, Delia Pizarrro, Silvia Ricopa, Cordelia Sanchez, Olinda Silvano, Sadith Silvano, Jessica Silvano and Nelda Silvano, part of the collective, have created a series of works in which they develop different versions of kené designs, the traditional Shipibo-konibo geometric patterns painted on canvas. In their composition's lines the family heritage and knowledge shared through different generations converge today: grandmothers, mothers and daughters who affirm, through their own interpretations, to the kene as energy, inspiration and Cantagallo medium, and to develop together proposals that evoke their stories and family ties, of expression. In this Encounter of Rivers they propose to show how the course of the rivers - the Ucayali River and their life trajectories - have led them to coincide today in their respectful relationship with a shared traditional knowledge and the exploration of new modes of creation and languages for geometric patterns.

The artists in Encuentro de ríos seek to highlight the history and changes that have been generated for the kené in recent decades. For them, the works of previous generations were structured in simpler geometric shapes and larger proportions. Today's patterns concentrate the forms and details in each composition, reducing the size of the designs and including grids and other means to make the lines more and more precise. Each artist draws inspiration for the kené from the knowledge of her ancestors and carries it out according to her own technical skills, either with greater dexterity in the handling of materials, or in fine or gestural executions, which are deployed in embroidery, ceramics, weavings with beads and, in recent years, large-format murals. The artists identify in their works updated versions of ancestral designs and highlight them in their relationship with master plants and healing processes -art and medicine- but also emphasize the interrelationships between human and non-human beings, diverse natural elements, times and spaces that are identified with the lines, and that show a critical stance towards the problems of deforestation and destruction of Amazonian ecosystems.

In this way, the kené in Encuentro de ríos is presented in a series of paintings created collectively and in a polyptych of the same name, which includes individual contributions to build a composition that interconnects different views on the creation of these patterns today, and highlights the relationship between the river and the family traditions of each artist. Maya kené. Río Ucayali (2024) delineates the paths of the river framed by master plants and protective spirits. This work also condenses the contents proposed for the exhibition, because through painting it links the personal stories of all the artists, their life flows, their vital currents. Other compositions focus on highlighting the relationship between the kené and the strength of the master plants, or are deployed in the various drawings that evoke bones, animal skins, rivers, traditional medicine and its processes and the elements of flora and fauna.

Likewise, some of the works included in the exhibition are presented as a tribute to the grandmothers, mothers or mothers-in-law from whom the artists received their teachings. This Encounter of Rivers, then, is a confluence of waters and life lines, of family memory networks and creative flows that are proposed, from the perspective of the artists, to continue developing new forms for the kené, understanding its link with traditional knowledge but, at the same time, affirming its execution as part of the development of each one of them as creators, with their own forms and ways, and with different means to relate, understand and express their designs.

Encuentro de Ríos. Group exhibition.

Until April 13, 2024.

Curated by Giuliana Vidarte.

Paseo Lima Gallery. Calle General Borgoño 770, Miraflores, Lima, Peru.