Uno No Existe Solo de Contar Oro (U.N.E.S.C.O.)
2021

Uno No Existe Solo de Contar Oro (U.N.E.S.C.O) is an installation of three Ruanas, a popular Colombian cloth born of Spanish religious garments and Indigenous textiles. Ruanas are currently listed as Colombian National Patrimony, and are being widely re-appropriated in contemporary fashion as a site of celebration of the nation's mestizo histories. I am interested in interrogating the production of national property and cultural value by alluding to the color gold and its histories in the colonization of Colombia as 'El Dorado'. The three textile woven and felted Ruanas vary in size, technique and installation and appear throughout the gallery space alongside a triple-spout ceramic vessel. The number three appears throughout the installation to add another layer of meaning, alluding to a multitude of spiritual significance from the Three Pachas in Incan cosmology to The Three Kings. The triple-spout ceramic vessel ties together the cultural and spiritual implications of gold, while also diffusing Frankincense and Myrrh on the new, half and full moons of the exhibition. The installation engages the materiality of this in-betweenness of healing and resistance through their floating forms, referencing angels, landscapes, the cosmos and the power of the Colombian people who wear Ruanas under so many contexts.