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YANAK UYWAÑA
The Mutual Nurturing of the Arts

Elvira Espejo Ayca

ADKDW Decolonial Studies Program

Translated from Bolivian Spanish by Pablo Lafuente

edited by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz
YANAK UYWAÑA
 Elvira Espejo Ayca

YANAK UYWAÑA
The Mutual Nurturing of the Arts

Translated from Bolivian Spanish by Pablo Lafuente

Publication Series ADKDW Decolonial Studies Program

edited by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz

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To my mother Nicolasa Ayca Mamani,
To my grandmother Gregoria Mamani Payru
and my great grandmother Martina Pumala,
it’s thanks to them that I cultivated my thinking
 Reason Separated from Sensitivity

I am going to address an issue that I have prepared so

that we can travel together. I have called it yanak uywa-
ña, or mutual nurturing of the arts.1 It comes from a
reflection on work done with communities who produce
textiles from the Oruro department, in the Bolivian
Andes.2 I trained as an artist in my community,3 after
which my experience in the university turned out to be
very complex, because I encountered a recurrent insis­
tence on separating concepts through opposition: reason
and sensitivity, art and science, subject and object, soci-
ety and nature. We, Amerindians studying and research-
ing at the university, are expected to learn a theory of art
that travels from Greece to Europe and North America and

1 Editor’s note: The original title YANAK UYWAÑA. La crianza mutua de las
artes is bilingual Aymara-Spanish. In its broadest sense, the Aymara term uywa-
ña may be understood as a mutual process of nurturing, creating, educating,
taking care. The full Spanish text is available at ​​https://laplurinacional.com.
bo/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/YANAK-UYWANA.-La-crianza-mutua-
de-las-artes_ELVIRA_ESPEJO_AYCA.pdf (last accessed on 20 Septem-
ber 2023).
2 Editor’s note: the work resulted in the book Ciencia de las mujeres:
Experiencias en la cadena textil desde los ayllus de Challapata (2010) and avail-
able at https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/textileresearch/3/ (last accessed on
20 September 2023).
3 Editor’s note: Ayllu Qaqachaka, in the Avaroa province, also in Oruro.

9
from there to Latin America, and which proposes a pyrami­-
dal structure of knowledge.
After my return, the main question in the communi-
ties while working together was: How do we understand
art? Many of them maintained, from their own conception,
that art exists everywhere. In contrast, my teachers at the
university would say that there is no art in the communi-
ties, only crafts and archaeological objects. This bothered
me, because every community says that each of them has
their own forms of artistic expression. It’s not that we don’t
have them, we actually do. The issue is that we don’t un-
derstand them in the same terms. That made me think,
and research. And I reached an important conclusion: that
for us, people from the communities, reason and sensitivity
can’t be set apart.
In fact, they are deeply connected, and there are words
that refer to this: uywaña, in Aymara, and uyway, in Que-
chua, both of which mean mutual nurturing, which im-
plies a far-reaching connectivity – for example, with raw
materials. Without raw materials, art doesn’t exist. For
weavers, ceramicists and sculptors raw materials are very
important. Contrary to what archaeologists and histori-
ans often say, uywaña neither mean domestication, nor
man’s ability to dominate land and nature. That would
be male, gendered domination, of a kind that doesn’t

10
exist within the communities. What this word means is
mutual nurturing with the utmost care. And uywaña un-
folds in other terms, such as:
– Uywa uywaña, or mutual nurturing of animals. For
example, the camelids (llama, alpaca, vicuña) and their
fleece. Sheep would arrive later, with the colonial occu-
pation. Animals give us wool and charque4, and there-
fore we must care for them as much as possible. It is
not about domestication, or domination by humans. It
is about caring for them as another living being within
the territory, and them caring for us when we wear their
wool. We must give them our best and respect them,
and they are going to give the same to us. They give to
us and we give to them, and that is why we talk about
mutual care.
– Ali uywaña, or mutual nurturing of plants. For exam-
ple, with cotton, which is an extremely important
instance of mutual nurturing. Today we are only familiar
with bright white cotton, as the result of the whiten-
ing of monoculture, but in the past, there were cotton
flowers of several colours (red, blue, green) that later

4 Editor’s note: Charque is dehydrated meat, made by curing thin strips of

skinned meat with salt before hanging them up to dry outdoors in the sun
and wind.

11
disappeared through genetic manipulation. Coloured
flowers were found in archaeological sites in the northern
coast of Peru, revealing the utmost care taken towards
the land and the management of water, the selection of
seeds, the times of harvest, and the storage of fibres, all
the operative chains of processes that are part of such
mutual nurturing.
It is said that cochineal5 was taken from the Ameri-
cas to Europe because there was no red in Europe. Here,
in the Americas, epistemology, philosophy, science and
technology were well developed before colonisation. The
problem is that there was no appropriate communication
of these knowledges, and our philosophies and episte-
mologies, the age-old knowledge of textiles, ceramics,
feather work and basketry, all those specialised practices
that passed from one generation to another, were con-
demned to oblivion. When formal education arrived with
colonialism, an epistemological rupture took place.
– Yanak uywaña, or mutual nurturing of cultural objects.
It may refer to the arts and also to objects, which are in fact

5 Editor’s note: Cochineal (from Spanish cochinilla) is a scale insect native

to tropical and subtropical South America, Central America and Mexico. In
various American cultures, it has been traditionally used to produce charac-
teristic red pigments for dye and colorants.

12
subjects. It is commonly said: “My cousin aguayo6 looked
after me”; “My lady aguayo looked after me”; “My lady
blanket protected me from the wind, the sun and the cold.”
It is not about owning for the sake of mere ownership, but
rather about taking care of a living being who needs cer-
tain things, such as food, to have its life preserved. And
the object, which in Aymara and Quechua is identified as
subject, suffers and needs to be taken care of: it shouldn’t
be left in the sun, for example, and if it is, it needs to be
reinforced. When thinking about an item of clothing, we
must think about the finishings that protect it, because we
consider it alive. It is beautiful as a result of the specific fin-
ishings. To a piece of ceramic, we may say: “Thanks to you
we may carry our food, and have the possibility of eating
well, of drinking well.” The same happens with textiles and
other things. These mutual nurturing may be developed in
different dimensions: a landscape, a territory, tools, acces-
sories. We don’t say that a thing is ours, like a dead object,
but that it is a subject that takes care of us and that we
take care of.

6 Editor’s note: The aguayo is a square cloth with multiple functions made
of wool that women of Andean origin use, for instance, to carry goods or
children on their back, or as an adornment.

13
 Mutual Nurturing of Thoughts and Feelings

Since the seventeenth century, reason and sensitivity have

been set apart. Afterwards, in Immanuel Kant’s and En-
lightenment theories, reason was sanctioned as the most
important faculty. The focus since has been on ratio­nal
planning, separated from sensitivity, and the ability to
think through other means has been ignored. A hierarchy
was created, and based on it, an elite. Such a move paid
heed to a particular social class, protecting it, and keeping
everyone and everything else outside of the field of art.
Within the communities, such hierarchical rationality
doesn’t exist. Instead, we use the following words and con-
cepts: reading with your fingertips, reading with your body
and reasoning with the sensitivity of your body, of your
feet. It is about the interconnectivity between feeling and
thinking, which can’t be separated. Feeling and thinking
go together, as sensing-thinking.7 In Aymara we say:

7 Editor’s note: The Spanish term sentipensar is an attempt to translate a com-

mon linguistic figure used by many originary nations that do not separate the no-
tions of sensing and thinking. The Aymara example used in the following, amta
yarachh, literally translates as amta, thinking, and yarachh, sensing or feeling, and
builds one single expression. The term has been appropriated by Spanish-speak-
ing academics such as Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda (1925–2008)
in an attempt to postulate a new academic concept, while its tradition is deeply
rooted in the linguistic structures of the originary nations.

15
– Amta yarachh uywaña, the mutual nurturing of thoughts
and feelings. Thoughts are cultivated, they are inside the
body, inside the landscape, inside the instruments that
will come into play. Such synergy of ideas may pass from
a young boy to an older person, from an older person
to a young girl, or from an idea or instrument to a per-
son. They are not rationalising agents, but, rather, they
appeal to such connectivities, experiences and sensitivities
in order to be able to generate the amta yaracch uywaña,
the shared act of thinking that leads to new acts of cre-
ativity. Such shared sensing-thinking is what generates
the creativity to make artworks – a constant nurturing
of sensing-thinking that allows us to create and recreate.
– Amuy’tanakax uywaña, or mutual nurturing of thoughts
and sensitivity in incessant self-reflection. This means
that, when thinking, we are not generating a dominant
reason that makes judgments so that it may be applied.
Instead, it is as if, by applying this thought and feel-
ing to the act of making, the sensing-thinking offers a
reflection that may be bettered in the future. So, there
is always the possibility of improvement.
That is why we say, for example, “thinking with the fin-
gertips”, when we make a preselection of fibres. The same
happens in ceramics, with clay. It is an education that goes
through the fingertips, which makes the fingers more

16
capable than the eyes or the head. The sensitivity of the fin-
gertips perceives the texture of the fibre, and this is lodged
in the head and other parts of the body.
This capacity is taught visually, but it’s experienced indi-
vidually. The fingers’ eyes need to be opened up, to enable
a journey through sensitivity. In order to work with ceram-
ics, we need to ask for permission and respect from the clay
mines. A ceremony is organised so that the clay may flow in
the best possible manner through our feet. Why our feet?
Because we knead clay with our feet. The feet must have
the sensitivity of the eyes when they step on the clay. Clay
feeds through your feet, and later, when moulding, through
your fingers. Within the communities, we say: “Thanks to
my feet I could bring together the different raw materials
for the ceramics.” Marrying, bringing together, joining to-
gether. We also say: chakirayku, “thanks to my feet”. This
means my feet have made the clay mix with the water in
order to obtain a good substance, which is passed onto the
hands. Therefore, the feet are feeling and contributing, as
the hands will be later, and in the last instance the eyes.
Here we can see how all this sensitivity creates connectivity.
The same happens with textiles, as the fibres feed into
the sensitivity of the fingers, which keep this knowledge for
the future. It is said that such learning must be awakened
during childhood, so that when the eyes can no longer see

17
the thread, after reaching a certain age, the fingers can eas-
ily identify it. That is why it is often said: “I was born spin-
ning and I will spin until the end.”
You think with your feet such joint actions, and you
translate them when you carry the raw material on your
back. By carrying it on your back, the sensitivity of your
body is interacting with the raw material. It is your body
that moves it. The raw material is not going to reach the
table on its own. The rational element connects all these
details; not by judging or giving structure to everything,
but by providing a structure for the interventions. It is
an act of understanding and doing from the bottom up,
something very different from creating hierarchies in the
mind.
There is a magnetic field between the raw material, the
feet and the hand, a set of larger forces that complement
each other to make this construction. Kant and the En-
lightenment are not interested in this, they don’t think
about how these processes, as they develop, have an effect
on sensitivity. They don’t consider the processes and proce-
dures through which an artwork is constructed. They stop
at the idea.
– Amuy’tanakax uywaña: sensing-thinking allows us to cre-
ate in different times and different spaces. And this results
in a horizontal perspective. Quechua and Aymara languages

18
allow you to perceive that you are not superior to anything,
that you are part of a diversity of actions within a magnetic
field. Everything is horizontal, everything is important. This
leads to another term:
– Jaqichaña, or creation of the work of art, which is not
only planned in the head, but also through the act of com-
plementing raw materials. For example, through a series of
actions, wool is processed, and a mutual nurturing of the
ajayu (spirit) of the raw material begins, coming together
with the person. Jaqichaña means slowly turning some-
thing (a figure, a sculpture, a piece of cloth, etc.) into a
person or character. It means turning the effort made by
humans, by the tools and means around it, by the space, by
the air we breathe and by the temperature into persons or
characters. Everything that surrounds us. Respect is always
mutual. This means that I am not dominating with my
thoughts, but rather I complement my thoughts with the
wool, which is a subject. Both subjects will join forces to
achieve the thread of life, the yarn.
It’s through the fingertips that the textures can be
told apart, and the body is nurtured. Weaving with the
spinning wheel, several force fields come together. The
first one is in the hands; it is the force of the hands. The
second is the force of the wheel, which is both a tool and
a character. The third is the wool. The three of them

19
together turn the wool into thread, and the thread is the
beginning of the artwork. Another term is:
– Yanak jaqichaña, or mutual nurturing of things,
which will require the intervention of specific tools, who
are also subjects. The instruments will help to produce,
and reproduce, to create or bring into being, to improve
and surpass, in complementary actions. And then:
– Ali uywiri, the specialist in the mutual nurturing of
plants. This specialist knows the land, the seeds, the
food and the water, he knows the right time to obtain
the fibres, as part of very specialised processes and pro-
cedures. And then:
– Uywa qamani, in Aymara, and uywa qamayux, in
Quechua, who is the specialist in the mutual nurturing
of animals. For them, the specialist will think about ter-
ritory, the pastures, the water and the life cycle of the
animal: when the offspring will be born, when it will
grow, when vitamins will be needed, when it will be able
to work. And then:
– Qapu qamani, in Aymara, and pushkax qamayux,
in Quechua, the specialist in the mutual nurturing of
spinning. The raw material passes through the mutual
nurturing of animals and plants, and later through the
mutual nurturing of spinning. Why this specialisation?
Because the thread doesn’t come into being on its own,

20
but only when we bring together the force fields of
the spinning wheel, the wool, the fibre and the hands.
And then:
– Sami qamani, in Aymara, and llimphi qamayux, in
Quechua, the specialist in the mutual nurturing of
natural dyes who composes the colour trays by water
immersion, a practice historically parallel to Isaac New-
ton’s theory of steam, light and shadow. The sami
qamani or llimphi qamayux is complemented with the
chemical reaction of the plants and of the minerals,
generating a different type of molecule that fixes itself
onto the structure of the fibre. The plant is a person, a
living being that has the sensitivity to donate the col-
our, and at the same time works as medicine. And then
comes:
– Sawu qamani, in Aymara, or away qamayux, in Que-
chua, who is the specialist in the mutual nurturing of
textile. They are very specialised, being the persons
who weave. This nurturing involves the creation of the
loom, the creation of iconography through technique,
and of people specialised in exchanges and commercial-
isation. And then:
– Luraña, which is the process of making the artworks
with your feet, hands, head, heart, body… in actions
that complement each other. And luriri, the creator,

21
male or female. Yanak luriri is the creator of things, the
person who brings together the different fields of action,
and who has a specialised reading of the tools. The sen-
sitivities pass through the body and achieve a finesse.
Luraña relates to balance and complementarity, to being
able to integrate the hands and tools that are required
in the exact processes and procedures for the creation of
a work of art.
Which movements of your body will complement this
sensitivity? In this process of learning all the senses are
present: that of the feet, of the hands, of the body, of the
eye, of the head, of the heart. And also, as we say in Ay-
mara, chuymamantiw lup’ita, “you think with your lungs”.
Why are lungs so important? Because if we don’t breathe,
we don’t exist. In Aymara we don’t say, “I love you with
all my heart”, but “I love you with all my lungs”. You say,
“thinking with the lung”. You even say, “the cloud is the
greatest source of inspiration for my thoughts”.
In the dominant version of Greco-Latin thought,
making an artwork is an action in which such conjuga-
tion of sensitivities is lost. Reason predominates, and art
is understood on the level of superficial, aesthetic beau-
ty. In Aymara we say taq’i amayunpi saltata: “you must
lead with all your senses.” The senses of the fingers, of
the feet, of the eyes, of thought, of the instruments and

22
of the raw material: they mutually direct themselves.
With many things that need coordination, it’s necessary
to give them direction in order to obtain the best possi-
ble results.
This leads to the integration of all actions in order to
reach the thread of life. Therefore, I am not the execu-
tor. I don’t do it for egocentric reasons, but because of
respect for the instruments, for the raw materials that
come together and that must be given direction. It is
about the possibility of mutual respect between subjects
and diverse life forms. Mutual nurturing goes through
many actions, and in them everyone has the right to be
together. We may talk about the right of the land, the
right of nurturing the raw materials, the right to life of
animals and plants.
This helps us to understand that art is not bound to su-
perficial beauty, to the consumption of sweetness through
the eyes and the explosion of the senses, but that it is a
conjunction of many sensitivities that make us go beyond
what we feel. This leads to a permanent reflection instead,
we think in extractivist terms, rather than creating a bal-
ance with the environment or the raw materials.

23
 The Big Rupture

I believe the big break took place in the eighteenth cen-

tury, when the works of art were hierarchised, and the
following questions emerged: What is art? What doesn’t
qualify as art? This led to divisions, to social classifica-
tion, and to the act of differentiating between those who
attend university and those who don’t.
All the specialisations mentioned earlier in the text
refer to training, and to their own type of university.
The concept of mutual nurturing goes through the jiwa-
sa,8 a “we” that includes the interlocutor, and through a
division of tasks fulfilled by diverse elements and bod-
ies, such as gathering the clay, carrying it, kneading it
with your feet and passing it through the hands. Several
people can do it at the same time, there is no artist act-
ing on his own, in his studio, producing the artwork, no
spectator who, on his own, contemplates the work at the
gallery. In the mutual nurturing, this separation does
not apply. Within the jiwasa, the totality of the human
being as executor is present. But we are executors thanks

8 Editor’s note: In Aymara the term jiwasa, which is commonly trans-

lated as “we/us”, may include animals, water, rivers, the landscape, the
environment, everything that is considered vital to the community.
All these elements constitute the “we”.

25
to the animal, the plant, the stone and the clay, who are
also living beings.
In such operative chains9 there is always jiwasa, while
within the rational model there is only “I”: I am the per-
son who decides, I am the person who thinks, I will be
the one to execute, I, I, I, I. And this eventually leads to
male domination, man dominates over everyone else. In
the Aymara linguistic structure, in contrast, the idea is
that “we carry all of us” through mutual respect, all hav-
ing the same value. That is the jiwasa, which is inclusive
of all modes of existence, among them the naya, “I”.
In Aymara we say uraqin uywatatwa: “I have been nur-
tured by the land.” Which is like saying: “I am not the one
who nurtured everything, I am also nurtured.” When you
think that the land nurtures you, the water nurtures you,
the wind nurtures you, the fire nurtures you, you must de-
velop a lot of affect and care so as to integrate them in the
best possible manner, because we need each other. It is a
balance that comes from understanding the universe. In
many cases, these theories lose their essence when they are
hierarchised and trapped within a rational model.

9 Editor’s note: The author uses the term cadenas operatorias in the original
Spanish, which corresponds to the archaeological approach of the Chaîne opé-
ratoire (chain of operations), the step-by-step analysis of artefacts – from raw
material to production to use and the resulting further products.

26
 Diversity of Epistemologies
and Philosophies

Uñachht’ayaña means “exhibiting to all the people”. In a

community celebration, you can present the best clothes
or the best artwork and everyone has the right to see it. It
is a public exhibition for all, without limitations. We go
to the celebration with everything because we must show
what we are. And it is available for everyone: children,
grown-ups, internal and external visitors; it is a gallery
open to all.
Even though it is commonly said that art galleries
are places for all, they are enclosed by four walls, and in
many cases difficult to access. They are often restrict-
ed to some social classes and allow for an “I” to present
an artist and another “I” to sell the work of this artist.
Everything is built around an image and two or three
people. The celebration within the community is not
something to be experienced alone. It is for the com-
munity, because we go there as a group, and we com-
ment as a community: “What did you think of that
community?” – “They presented themselves like this.” –
“They presented themselves like that.” And the same hap-
pens from the other side. These are debates that generate
new ideas, new sensitivities, new aesthetics of colour, of

27
shape, of techniques, of structures. They re­create the op-
erative chains of processes, and this generates creativity.
Art galleries are a function of hierarchical epistemic
geopolitics. It is a philosophy rationalised for conquest
and domination. And this was implemented in every
dimension. I believe its most intense manifestation in
Latin America is professionalisation. If you don’t have
a degree, you are not professional, and it is easier to
dominate you. With mutual nurturing, we understand
how contemporary art also generates fragmented epi­
stemic extraction. A performance often consists in tak-
ing a fragment of an action from a community to a gal-
lery. I call it predation of small things. But what would
it be like, instead, to understand things as a people, as
a community? I don’t mean in the sense of looking for
equivalent translations in art. I talk about using episte-
mological and philosophical terms from the community,
according to the structure and territory that gives shape
to their logics. How are things understood from this
point of view? From a diversity of philosophies, with
their own logics, I believe.
We could work from a diversity of epistemological
thoughts, such as sensing-thinking. Sensing-think-
ing shows us balance, not domination. I believe these
terms can help us land in the present in the best possible

28
manner. Thinking from these terminologies in order
to improve and to guarantee a large-scale opening of
thoughts through different spaces. I believe thinking
processes in the Lowlands are very different from those
in the Highlands.10 In the Highlands we talk a lot about
animals, because the mutual nurturing of animal fibres
predominates, while in the Lowlands, in the Tropics,
vegetal fibres predominate.
Mutual nurturing in the Lowlands is different in its
processes and procedures. If we come to understand
them, we will be able to see how art is developed and
how we can understand ourselves through such diversi-
ty. This is a task for young people, who need to work
hard to be able to set these ways of thinking in contrast,
rather than absorbing ways of thinking that are not co-
herent with what we are. We need to think and rethink
from the perspective of who we are, what we are like,
and how we project ourselves towards the future.11

10 Editor’s note: The Bolivian Highlands refer to the Andean plateau and
valleys regions, including the departments of La Paz, Potosí, Oruro, Cocha­
bamba, Chuquisaca and Tarija. The Lowlands are located on the East and
characterised by their Amazonian climate, with the departments of Santa
Cruz, Beni and Pando.
11 Editor’s note: Since the MAS-IPSP (Movement for Socialism – Po-
litical Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples) assumed govern-
ment in 2006, and with the approval of a new Political Constitution

29
In India, with the mandalas and the temples, art and
the sacred are very close to one another. The temple is
the open sacred space where you enter, showing respect,
following a set of actions that society at large is familiar
with. The same happens with the wak’as in the Andes:
sacred places and large-scale artworks, as a result of the
sculptural construction of the stones, for which we have
the utmost respect.
I like to think from this diversity of epistemolo-
gies and philosophies, be it in a region, a community, a
house or a family. From the point of view of the uywa-
ña, or the uyway, of mutual nurturing, you think from
the material and from the immaterial, from the tangible
and the intangible. How can we do mutual nurturing
of the intangible? For example, the clouds? At a certain
moment in time, it is necessary that they be close to the

which understands Bolivia as Plurinational State composed of thirty-six

equal nations, there has been an increasing politicisation of regional dif-
ferences, mainly that between the Highlands and Lowlands. The binary
of High and Lowlands has been instrumentalised as one of the main
strategies of the right and far-right opposition to destabilise the Pluri-
national State, the governmental protection of cultural diversity and the
political mandate of the new constitution to “decolonise” Bolivia. The
concept of mutual nurturing may be one way to generate a common
ground for the cultural and political work of decolonisation that is yet
to be accomplished.

30
land, to make it humid and fertile. So we organise cer-
emonies for them to come, filled with water. And the
mutual nurturing of the clouds contributes to the mu-
tual nurturing of raw materials.
Kant and the Enlightenment couldn’t understand this
unfolding of the pluri-sensorial nature of things, because
the common thread of praxis was broken. Rational hier-
archy was imposed on everything, without understand-
ing the cultures and civilisations that developed their
own notions in their own spaces and times.
When I visited India, I was impressed by the realisa-
tion that the Baroque had developed in India and China
before it took place in Europe, contrary to what Euro-
centric literature says. And in our archaeological sites, in
Mexico, in Guatemala, in Tiwanaku12, in Cusco, modern
art had already developed. In this sense, we need to un-
derstand the philosophical thinking of the communities
themselves, so that we may have mutual respect between
places and peoples.

12 Editor’s note: Tiwanaku in Bolivia, near Titicaca Lake. Tiwanaku is of-

ten referred to as one of the great civilisations of America between 100 and
1000 AD. Their empire extended throughout the Andes and is considered
as the model for the Inca empire centuries later. In the context of Bolivia,
Tiwanaku plays a foundational role in terms of cultural identity. Its main
spoken language was Aymara.

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Reason and aesthetics have been instruments to guar-
antee Western philosophy’s domination, which has
attempted to create a monoculture in order to justify
the extraction of raw materials such as gold and silver,
the extraction of cultural goods that are kept in muse-
ums today, and the epistemological extractivism of the
researchers.
Our sensitivity allows us to achieve a full equi-
librium. We are people, community and nature. But
hierarchical thinking says that nature is not part of
society. We talk about oral histories, communal econ-
omies, the sciences and technologies of the commu-
nities, and, in that balanced sensitivity, we talk about
mutual nurturing.
Terms don’t function independently; they work with-
in a structure. In this episteme, “I” is not a dominant
term, as it is within formal, Western education. Jiwasa is
an extremely interesting pronoun. When you go to the
hill or mine to obtain clay, you ask for permission to the
hill or the mine’s being, because for us they are people:
“Please, help me so that the clay comes out in the best
possible way, that it lets itself loose.” There is an infinity
of power in that request, that results in having the clay
in your hands, taking it to the workshop or home, where
the artwork will be made.

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The same thing happens when, within the group,
coca leaves, are brought into the mouth, or during the
ch’alla13. We say jiwasa walikisna: “I hope we comple-
ment each other in the best possible way.” I am saying
this to the clay through the coca leaves. The characters
gather in force fields that are yours, mine and of the
instrument. This generates a synergy, a movement of
coming together in order to create another character.
And it is not individualistic. “I” is not the character. The
characters will complement each other in order to rec-
reate the other character.
Within the community, cultural goods require such
uywaña treatment, which ensures their conservation and
preservation. You have to take care of the light, the hu-
midity, the temperature, so that the life of the cultur-
al good is extended. Those terms are understood quick-
ly within the community, because they are part of its
logic. But many people have migrated from the com-
munities to the cities. The first generation still main-
tains a connection, but the second risks losing it. They
don’t understand the utmost care practised by their own

13 Editor’s note: Ch’alla is a ceremony or “baptism” (sprinkling) that in-

cludes ritual offerings, alcohol, coca, sweets, tobacco, etc., to ask for fertility
and prosperity or for abundance.

33
communities. It’s a mixture between, on the one hand,
individualisation and consumption and, on the other,
the question of how connectivity and mutual processes
may be recuperated. The lack of familiarity with the lan-
guage structure causes difficulties in the communication
between generations, between their times and spaces,
which in turn obstructs the exercise of thinking our phi-
losophies – jiwasan amayusa – the understanding of the
mutual nurturing of our cultural goods.14
Beauty is not the final aspiration, raw materials are
not the key element, you are not the most important
factor either. We are in a mutual, balanced respect. We
are jiwasa.

14 Editor’s note: Jiwasan Amayusa/El pensar de nuestras filosofías (2019–

2020) is the title of a video-trilogy by Elvira Espejo Ayca and also the title of
her homonymous solo-exhibition at Espacio Simón I. Patiño in La Paz, Bo-
livia, in 2019. As part of the exhibition Reactivando Videografías (2020–21)
the video-trilogy was on view at the Real Academia de España en Roma,
Rome, Italy, and in Spanish Cultural Centres in Asunción, Paraguay, and
La Paz, Bolivia, amongst others. The exhibition project can be accessed on-
line and is available at: https://www.reactivandovideografias.com/expo (last
accessed on 27 September 2023).

34
Elvira Espejo Ayca is an artist, musician, weaver and storyteller in the
oral tradition of her place of origin, the Allyu Qaqachaka in the Ava-
roa province, department of Oruro, Bolivia. She has been director of the
National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore (MUSEF) in La Paz
since 2013.

This translation of YANAK UYWAÑA. La crianza mutua de las artes

was produced in the framework of the exhibition Potosí Principle –
Archive, a project by Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann, as part
of the seminar of the same name in the Decolonial Studies Program of
the Academy of the Arts of the World / Cologne (ADKDW), 07.04.–
17.07.2022.

Publication series ADKDW Decolonial Studies Program

edited by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz

This booklet is part of the publication series of the Decolonial Studies

Program (DSP) at the Akademie der Künste der Welt / Köln (Academy
of the Arts of the World / Cologne, ADKDW). The DSP is an education-
oriented series of events (2022–2023) with a focus on post-colonial,
de-colonial and anti-colonial studies. It aims at providing a discursive
framework and accompanying program to the major exhibition projects
of the ADKDW, and as a site for its own production of knowledges.
The topical focus is on the investigation of structural colonialism on
both a global and a local level as well as on its effects on forms of
government, economy and environment, knowledges and knowledge
transfer.

In collaboration with transversal texts, the Akademie der Künste der

Welt publishes a number of commissioned texts, proceeding from the
DSP’s lectures, seminars and exhibition contexts.

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