A woven letter
I want to throw my feet up in the air. What kind of language is this?
Woven letters from the heart of a living world in Abya Yala. Through Pluriversity – Umunukunu Kwarte Umuke, invite us to weave our thoughts together with the soil we are standing on, in order to root our thinking and to remember who we are with Earth. This letter is an invitation to walk the living territory, to bond us with the soil and to connect to the Earth’s network of thoughts.
The participants of Pluriversity from the Kwarte Umuke community share with us their weavings and stories to inspire us with actions of rooted thinking. The Pluriversity respondents in the Netherlands, Aldo Esparza Ramos, LI Yuchen, Ana Bravo Pérez and Aliki van der Kruijs, respond to the letter collectively, yet with their own soils and positionality.
Mamo Arwawiku and the community in Kwarte Umuke, share their Gakuanamu (the rooted word which comes from the Anuwe) with us. According to Iku people, the thought always comes from somewhere. It doesn’t start from itself. The Anuwe comes from the connection with the soil, the water, the trees, the food, and the singing of the birds.
PLURIVERSITY WEAVERS
Seynawiku Izquierdo Torres, Dwasimney Del, Carmen Izquierdo Torres, Dwanimako Arroyo Izquierdo, María Eufemia Arroyo Izquierdo (Kwarte Umuke community, Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia), Ana Bravo Pérez, Aldo Ramos, Aliki van der Kruijs, LI Yuchen
Pluriversity is a collective action seeded according to the will of the Mamos (the spiritual guides) of the
Kwarte Umuke community. Departing from the Anuwe Kunsamu or the law of origin that focuses on the
protection, conservation and practices of ancestral knowledges, we are a group of artists, academics, and
activists who come together with the Ikus.(guardians of life) in the paths of protection of living territories and ancestral knowledges. We aim to weave alternative ideas, experiences and knowledges to strengthen life
against the projects of death perpetuated by the western model of modernity. The practice of these ancestral
knowledges have always existed for the Iku and it is called Umunukunu. We have translated it as Pluriversity because it arises from the acknowledgement of a pluriversality of knowledges.
Installation view as part of The Soil Project at TarraWarra Museum, Healesville, Australia.
Aliki van der Kruijs:
I want to throw my feet up in the air. What kind of language is this? 2023
To be immersed, to be really present and connect with a territory, the body is essential for listening, making and articulating from and with a place and our dear Earth.
My response comes from the insight, or hope, that if we all learn to stand on our hands, we will thank the ground, the earth itself, more often. In this way, gravity and our attraction to the Earth would find firmer ground under our feet, will attain more value.
Learning to stand on my hands started intuitively and, serendipitously, just before I received a letter from the heart of the world. By touching and being with this letter I discovered that the circular piece is the same
dimension as my spread hand. I was deeply impressed by how the woven letters are made by the Iku people,
whereby two spiralling forces with two energies, are connecting; a female and male energy intertwine.
Through the yarn, the earth is touched, hands are walking a line, and forces combine.
These photographs and drawing share the process of thinking with the territory, an approach and act of
being present and aware of place. It’s an invitation for the readers of the images to look around, and see the
interwoven relations of everything that grows, breathes, is alive in the territory one encounters, and to feel
inspired to root oneself through their hands with our common ground.
