“How Can Artists Help the Communities?”

Eliana Muchachasoy is an artist from the Camëntŝa community in the Sibundoy Valley, located in the department of Putumayo in the Colombian Amazon. From this abode, the artist uses painting and photography to reflect on the struggles for territory and the vindication of indigenous peoples. In 2018, she went to Australia to participate in an artistic residency. Her work has been exhibited in Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador and the United States.

C&AL: What led you to become an artist and how has your birth territory influenced your work?

Eliana Muchachasoy: The beginning of my artistic path can be traced back to my mother, who provided me with art supplies. Since childhood, I was very interested in painting and colors, and later I went on to study plastic arts at the National University of Colombia. At the time, I did not feel comfortable with the technique of painting and I put it aside. When I finished my degree, I returned to my native territory in Putumayo where I worked as an arts teacher. There, I took up painting again and began to make different proposals from the community based on the colors native to the territory as well as the medicine and the vindication of the indigenous struggles.

C&AL: What topics and issues do you address in your artwork?

EM: In my work I have examined issues such as mega-mining and the construction of the San Francisco bypass in Mocoa. This is a road that would cross much of the indigenous reservation and cause significant environmental impact and displacement of the community. There has been talk of carbon trading, the construction of a hydroelectric plant and of the intention to establish a military base in this area. In my paintings, I also speak of the indigenous woman, as a way of representing myself. With my work, I want to make a call to strengthen our identity and defend our territory. Especially children and young people have lost a part of our cultural values, which in turn has prevented the community from uniting to defend their land.

C&AL: What do you think of artists who seek to consciously celebrate indigenous identity through art?

EM: There is a lot of talk these days about homage and inspiration in relation to indigenous communities. But when you speak with the grandmothers and grandfathers of those communities, they don’t really feel represented through these works, nor do they see the need to receive homage in the first place. What is happening right now in the communities is a colonization through color: some artists have explored traditional techniques in the communities in order to create an artistic intervention or to subtract the image of the territories. The problem with these works is that they are never shared inside the community. In Sibundoy for example, no archive or library exists with these works.

The community does not have access to this information. The same thing happens with museums; the art from the communities is inside the museums, but who has access to the museums? Not the community members, because museums exist outside the territories.

In my text “A Painted Indian” I speak of the need to encounter a point of balance: a reciprocity between the artist and the communities. The artist must weave her- or himself into the community and make a contribution to the territory. An example of this could be when artists participate in the everyday life of the communities: sowing the land, learning the indigenous language and getting to know the indigenous people. Finally, this also implies breaking existing privileges.

Ana Luisa González studied literature and works as a cultural journalist and independent reporter in Bogotá for different US based publications.

Translation from Spanish by Zarifa Mohamad Petersen