It’s noon, I sit waiting on a mound of stones arranged next to the roof of the Riqchari Chaska Association - wake up star in Quechua - the communal space for women of the association, and now also, temporarily my meeting space with them, located in Anccoto, one of the lower sectors of the Mullak´as Misminay community, located in Maras, Cusco, above 3,500 meters above sea level.

Some women have already arrived, and they start to distribute the chicha that they themselves prepare. Meanwhile, Georgina, Yovana, Joaquina, and Norma are stripping the chilca and molle, the local plants they have selected for today’s dyeing session. A baby sheep approaches Georgina and starts eating the chilca in her hands. Meanwhile, María Pilar, Antonia, and Teresa light the fires with the firewood they have brought. The communal pots are already filled with water ready to heat. In the distance, Jessica can be seen coming slowly, carrying her lliclla full of branches and firewood. Upon arrival, she greets all the companions, spreads her colorful blanket on the floor, begins to strip leaves, and joins the conversation in Quechua, the mother tongue in this community.

Georgina stripping the chilca in the company of the little sheep that is eating it.

Around, several children run and play; they also come by from time to time to see what’s happening, the sons and daughters of the younger women of the association who accompany every task. A radiant and powerful sun is felt; this is my second meeting with the Riqchari Chaska women, an association created just over a year ago, which convenes 25 artisan women from the community.

As we finish preparing for the dyeing, we talk about life on the slopes of the apus and what it means to live facing the impressive Andes mountain range, and also about the uncertainty that is felt in the community regarding their crops, as the long-awaited rains that will ensure a good harvest have yet to arrive. In the distance, the apu Chicón with its snow-capped peaks remains anchored in the landscape that welcomes us, a witness to this relationship that is slowly unfolding, day by day.

The Urubamba mountain range in the background and the chakras in the dry season waiting for the rains for planting.

Life here feels immense and tranquil. The chilly afternoon wind begins to blow despite the strong sun that feels close and exhausting. In the pots, the water boils, and the plants begin to release their colors. We decide to move to the roof to shelter ourselves under some shade and continue our conversation while drinking chicha. From corner to corner, rows of the botanicals found in the area hang: capulí, mark´u, molle, retama, chilk´a, eucalyptus, mullas´ka, among others, medicinal and dye plants used by the community. There is also a variety of handicrafts and textiles displayed on wooden tables spanning from post to post. Fabrics made by these women, creations that syncretize ancestral textile knowledge with more modern weaving techniques.

Daminana, Santusa, and Julia waiting for the dyes to be ready. Behind is the roof.

While we wait the 40 minutes it takes for the plants to release all their dye, I admire the vastness of this region. The play of shapes and colors that the chakras create in the pampa, the powerful embrace of the Urubamba mountain range where the apus Chicón and Verónica stand out, the road to Moray that is just a few steps away. On the other side, the community school, the adobe houses in the Anccoto sector at the foot of the hills, and the apus further back: Wañinmarka, Marhuay, Ccujtin, Pumaqkhasa, Yanaorcco.

I feel fortunate to be in this roof where the Riqchari Chaska gather to make decisions, organize, work on their textiles, dye, cook, and connect as friends. I marvel at the generational diversity and the sisterhood that exists between the wiser and older women and the younger and learning women, the breadth and helpfulness offered to all. There is a very close, special, and familial bond forged from generation to generation. I can also perceive these ties with the land, the plants they work with daily, the water that mediates life: its presence and absence in each season and in the connections with the apus and the stories that have been co-created between these mountainous bodies that sustain life and community.

Guardian apus from the Mullak´as Misminay community during a sunset that I captured on one of my walks back from Anccoto to Mil.

Damiana’s call brings me back to the gathering, and with her sweet but strong voice, she tells us that the dye is ready. María Pilar and Jessica take charge of straining it, while others prepare the basins where we will conduct the tests with the mordants. Expectant and with a lot of curiosity, we find ourselves observing the reactions created by the green colpa, the white colpa, and the alum in contact with the dye and the resulting shades. Minutes later, we are a circle of women huddled and excited around the pots while we immerse the skeins of sheep and alpaca wool to an impassioned rhythm, while someone stirs with the ladle, ensuring that all the skeins are submerged in the intense yellow of the chilca with alum.

Gathered around the fires, behind is the apu Chicón.

Time passes between stories about the apus, and I’m fascinated by how each has their version. They coincide and differ in details and laugh when they recognize some confusion. We begin to build trust, and I’m happy to be in this circle of stories and anecdotes. They also ask me about the place I come from, and I tell them that I live in Bogotá, and that there are also mountains and protecting hills there.

The shining Wañinmarka.

I came to Mil Centro wanting to understand these ties that the women of Riqchari Chaska have established with their environment, with the mountainous bodies and with water, and how these relationships take shape and become visible in textile practice. From the first encounters with them, I understood that it is in daily work where the connections and affections have been forged ancestrally. Living on the hills, drinking chicha and offering it by giving it to the apus and Pachamama, walking on mountains to reach the chakras, carrying other small “mountains” on their backs wrapped in llicllas that always accompany them. Ties that take shape in the practices of care that involve textiles: from herding sheep, collecting dye plants, using clay that is the mountain itself to dye memories that will later be spun and woven, to the communal gathering of these women, coming together to dye around the fire and weave bonds among themselves. Precisely, this was one of their intentions in creating the association, to have a space and set times to meet and work together, to bond and dye.

The llicllas are protective blankets.

Dyeing with clay and recording the diversity of shades from the dyes resulting from the different mordants.

Maintaining these practices and enriching them with other knowledge allows for the continued forging of ties and affections between the women and with their surroundings, as textile work also involves the collective. For 2 months I was also part of this collective practice, where we gathered to connect, feel-think, and bring present stories, practices, and knowledge in an exchange that led us to the representations of the mountains, rivers, lagoons, plants, and animals that are represented in the llicllas and in the chumpis (cords used to tie skirts). From there, the idea was born to reinterpret them with new dyeing techniques that would allow us to rethink the connections in the present.

Alicia drawing with tarwi milk on tocuyo.

We found in drawing a practice that allowed us to explore the icons and their patterns, modify them, reinterpret them, and give them meaning in the present. From there, the stories and anecdotes about these representations came back to personal and collective memory, like the memories of mothers and grandmothers creating these iconographies on backstrap looms.

The members of the Riqchari Chaska Association with one of the first exercises thinking about the apus and local iconographies. Drawing with tarwi milk and subsequent dyeing with purple corn.

For several weeks we dedicated ourselves to exploring the orqos (hills), the mayus (rivers), and the waka ñawi (bull’s eyes) through the technique of drawing with milk proteinate on tocuyo. A process where the proteins from tarwi or cow milk adhere to and penetrate the fibers of the fabrics, which will later allow for the dyeing to be stronger and more intense where the protein is present in a sort of revealing of the drawing. With brushes and stencils, we recreated our versions of the local iconography, first from intuitive exercises to represent the mountains we had in front of us and then moving on to more structured patterns following the logic of the iconographies of the llicllas that each carries.

Process of interpretation, dyeing, and revealing with tarwi milk, a very nutritious Andean legume fundamental in the diet of high Andean communities.

The material fruit of this practice and our gatherings condensed into utilitarian pieces made of cotton dyed with local botanicals from the Mullakas Misminay community that were incorporated into the commercial channel of Mater in Mil, a platform where the results of collaborative projects and artistic research are made visible and enables the sale of products developed alongside neighboring communities to the center.

Some pieces with apus embroidery made by the older women of the association.

The waka ñawi (bull’s eye) iconography dyed with chilk´a and purple corn.

Learning to feel life here and to understand and live the flourishes that exist and continue to occur in this interweaving of lives among the mountains is the greatest gift and lesson of my residency. Life among the apus leaves my soul radiant. 

I am grateful for the generosity of these women, the apus that support us, the entire Mil team, and especially that of Mater. I thank Malena for the trust to carry out this residency and also Verónica for the trust, support, and ideas I always received from her.