Historias del Barro

Abstract

Ceramic objects as containers of knowledge represent language and, therefore, they are equivalent to culture. Linked to this, the stories before or after the elaboration of the ceramic object, main interest of this Project, together they form a fabric, which dialogues in the research exercise with theories, academic statements, practices, trades and particularly, with my thinking, with the approximations and conclusions about a cross-cutting theme in my life, and in the lives of many people. To compile the Oralitura, by means of an analysis of the current position within what is known institutionally as tangible and intangible heritage in Colombia, represented in the ceramic object, in the memory and in the oral tradition, this analysis generated an interesting appropriation of the components of the research, through the approach to indigenous groups, knowing their situation and social and cultural position. This path led me to question the institutional knowledge and to restate the intention of this project whose main focus was the knowledge related to indigenous ceramic objects. As a strategy to make the spoken word visible with regard to ceramics with a view to the inclusion of ancestral knowledge in the artistic academic environment, histories were collected and bonds were generated with members of indigenous communities. The renewed interest of the new generations of art students in the tradition of pottery and indigenous thinking was taken into account , with the assurance that this contribution on the conceptualization of the trade from an expanded and sensitive view, as well as the inclusion of "other" thoughts, would enrich areas that have been underestimated so far within the plastic proposals in the university field, represented in projects resulting from a good dialogue between identity, ancestry and contemporaneity1. The stories and testimonies were found in research and compilations conducted by anthropologists, linguists, religious, or indigenous people from different groups; stories were obtained from members of different communities: Isaías Román from Uitoto community, Vitalia Letuama from Letuama community, Dioselina Rivera from Muinane community, and Nelly, from Yucuna community, communities belonging to the Amazon; the spiritual leader Clemente from Sikuani community in Puerto Gaitan, Meta, and the ceramists María del Carmen Romero, Medarda Torres, Herminia Arciniegas and María Temilda Salazar, the Guane community of Guane, Santander. The studied concepts, the ideas and thoughts resulting from all conversations with indigenous and academics from Art Studies Master, converged in a conclusion-reflection that seeks to define this conjunction between doing and thinking: Thought-Object.