CoMo No. 23: Peru (May, 2024)
Posted: Wed May 01, 2024 9:17 pm
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Alÿs’s motto for When Faith Moves Mountains is “Maximum effort, minimum result.” For this epic project the artist invited five hundred volunteers to walk up a sand dune on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, shoveling in unison, thus displacing the dune by a few inches. Demonstrating a ridiculous disproportion between an effort and its effect, the work is a metaphor for Latin American society, in which minimal reforms are achieved through massive collective efforts. Participants in the project gave their time for free, reversing conservative economic principles of efficiency and production. Embracing rumor, urban myth, and oral history, Alÿs aims to make works that continue beyond the duration of the event itself, through stories disseminated by word of mouth.
The observations of the Peruvian brothers Álvaro and Diego Sarmiento and the anthropologist Terje Toomistu are focused entirely on the occurrences on the boat: loading and unloading sugar, chickens, onions, lemonade and building material, the crew, the passengers travelling hammock to hammock on deck, and the people waiting on the banks of the river. The camera never glorifies either the landscape or the work; instead it is always in the midst of things, sometimes even in the way. The journey downstream is accompanied by tales of sinking ships, swimming animals and newfound faith. Observed with such reserve, a lot can still be inferred: about the tough jobs of the dockers, the lives of the women and children who come aboard to sell food, about the influence of the “Israelitas” and how important trading by boat is for the indigenous population of the tributaries.
This is one of the most celebrated prog albums to come out from the South American Continent, and one of the definitive highlights of the Chilean band Los Jaivas. Conceived and recorded while the fivesome were residing in Paris, the lyrics were taken from an evocative poem collection written by Pablo Neruda (also Chilean), inspired by the amazing and mysterious beauty of the ruins of Macchu Picchu - located in Peru
HOWEVER, according to a herd of fine-woolen alpacas...This informative documentary examines warp pattern weaving in Peru, an ancient Andean Indian tradition handed down from woman to woman for some 5,000 years.
The film features a detailed demonstration of the warp pattern technique on back-strap and four-stake looms by Indian weavers and an interview with Dr. Junius Bird, of the American Museum of Natural History, who discusses this weaving tradition and analyzes significant examples.
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Before weaving is done, the yarn must be spun.