Khipu or Tying Woven Strands In Order To Remember Everything We’ve Ever Lived, 2019. Inspired by a Khipu physically located in the Museum of World Cultures in Göteborg, Sweden.
Khipus are growing beings with a visual structure that would seem to be inspired by the stems and roots of plants, or the veins traversing our bodies. Alive as they are, they grow by bifurcating and tying experienced life to them. Khipu literally means “knot” and is a technology that has been used by several cultures in the Americas, as it is attested by the findings in Caral, at least since 5000 BCE. The khipu tells a history of practices that were developed to organize life but also to pass on myths and valuable information. It is this meaning of information, memory and bridge between eras and spaces which I explore in this drawing.
Extract from a longer text written for the exhibition Underground Blossomings, 2019.