Carola Arriagada

Latin America is a region that is home to a great ethnic plurality.
Although the reality of the peoples in each area of America has
different nuances, throughout the region there is still a cultural
segregation, ancestral traditions that contrast with contemporary
globalized culture and consumer...

Latin America is a region that is home to a great ethnic plurality.
Although the reality of the peoples in each area of America has
different nuances, throughout the region there is still a cultural
segregation, ancestral traditions that contrast with contemporary
globalized culture and consumer society. Faced with this reality,
I intend to rescue an artisan aesthetic component typical of the
original culture, pre-Columbian textiles, by constituting elements
that carry an aesthetic that integrates the values and worldview
of the original peoples.

Observing these textiles from ancestral cultures such as: Maya,
Inca, Huari, Moche, Mapuche, Aymara, I study their
iconography, symbolism, color and composition, and I discover
that in this worldview a deep respect for nature is combined,
and the search for a harmony of the human being with his
essential being (spirit) and his environment.

I reproduce through the simulation that oil painting and mixed
technique allow me through the collage process of glued fabrics,
different compositions that create a mixture of the
selected textiles.

My works connote an archaeological rescue, the fragments and
textile shreds represent the segregation of these cultures. With this
exhibition I intend to create a reflection about the
Latin American identity, taking the artisan aesthetics of textiles
and granting them the category of conventional art in a
painting format. The lofty questioning that my work entails is the
idea that an evolved and inclusive society must have a
horizontal and synergistic interaction between all its members,
that is, they must harmonize shared cultures, in this case, between
the contemporary consumer society and the original that persists.