Artist statement

Kípatsi is the Matsigenka word for earth. For this native community,

earth has always been the Amazon and even though they now have

settled down, their relationship with nature remains their life’s matrix.

However, such a bond is today corrupted by civilization, and the once

pristine jungle has become a frontier area, the setting for their silent

fight against illegal activities as well as for the preservation of their

ecosystem. My work is constructed as a dialogue between the

Matsigenka’s conception of nature, its reality and my own interpretation

of it. I find and relay essential elements of the relationship between

Nature and Man with the intention to inspire the viewer to rethink their

own.

Nature is as much a narrator of the story as I am, hence turning towards

alternative practices that increase its materiality, be it in substance or

design. The imagineku prints (lit., images in her dreams), pictures

printed on paper pre-tinted with local natural pigments, are the

culmination of the process. Collected and prepared alongside the

Matsigenka, their variations and imperfections are a testament

of nature’s many characteristics and of the complex bond

the Matsigenka have with it.

Over several trips that covered most of the Matsigenka’s native

communities in Madre de Dios (Peru), I have shared their lives and

gotten a deeper understanding of their connection with the

environment. After a thorough process that included on-field interviews,

scientific research and accompanying NGOs, I realized that a purely

documentary focus was too limitative. Consequently I moved towards a

more conceptual conversation where abstraction and sensations would

better express the complexity of my subject. Fluctuating across both

space and time, the reality of what is nature and civilization in the

Amazon is not yet set in stone.