Indigenous Traditional Material Creations: Art, Crafts, Design, or Other Alternative Worlds of Creation?
Arts, crafts, and design are concepts delimited by processes derived from western culture and history. The traditional material creations from the Pueblos Indígenas (indigenous communities) of Latin America have been classified in these categories, disregarding their ontologies, conceptualizations, native classes, and voices.
We look at the ontological dualism of modernity derived from the rationalist tradition that separates nature from culture, the soul from the body, humans from nonhumans, life from non-life, conveying a universe and a vision of the world that Escobar named Mundo Único. In contrast, the Pueblos Indígenas have other ontological premises known as “relational ontologies” in which the biophysical worlds, humans, and supernaturals are not regarded as separate entities but bounded with continuity links.
In this talk, we will get closer to the Pueblo Aruaco, one of the four Pueblos from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, whose culture is grounded in a relational ontology that supports their cosmogony, traditional material creations, and forms of being. Aruaco’s worldview brings hope for life as a whole.
Ana Cielo Quiñones is an Associate Professor in the Design Department in the School of Architecture and Design at Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogotá, Colombia. She is the coauthor of seven books: Human Geography of Colombia (volume 1), Reflections about Crafts and Design in Colombia, Conspiring with Craftsmen: Critique and Proposal to Design for Crafts, Socially Responsible Design: Ideology and Participation, Among Suns and Armantes: Participatory Design and Crafts in Valle de Tenza, The Schools of Arts and Métiers in Colombia, 1860–1960 (volumes 1 and 2), and Creation Worldviews of Indigenous Communities from Latin America.
Quiñones holds a Magister in Latinoamerican History from the University of Andalucia in Huelva, Spain; a BFA in Industrial Design from Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogotá, Colombia; and a Post-graduate Diploma in Human Rights from the Association of Universities Entrusted to the Society of Jesus in Latin America and the Institute of Social and Cultural Studies Pensar.
Sponsor
School of Art & Design Visitors Committee