Enchantment of Kené
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| free admission |
| Spanish |
| Mechanical Arena in the Foyer |
| Part of: SPÄTI |
Kené in the Shipibo language means “design.” It is the most elaborate artistic expression of the Shipibo-Konibo people — and perhaps of the entire Peruvian Amazon — for the variety and complexity of its patterns, the delicacy of its craftsmanship, and the depth of its meanings. Kené is a profound mystery (shini): a map of the sky, the paths of rivers, the skin of snakes, the veins of plants, and the visions produced by medicine.
Although both Shipibo men and women can see kené, it has traditionally been women who, since time immemorial, have traced these designs on their clothing, ceramics, and in their daily lives. Heir to this collective tradition, Indigenous artist and leader Olinda Silvano will appear for the first time in Berlin to talk about her artistic journey, her work for her community, and her creative collective Soi Noma, with which she has brought kené to city walls — transforming urban spaces through public art.
Olinda will be joined by curator, writer, and DJ Alfredo Villar (aka DJ Sabroso), who will speak about the history of Shipibo art and the process of collective creation in projects such as Koshi Kené. He will also play the most representative sounds of Amazonian music — sounds that arise from rao, or medicinal plants, from ayahuasca visions, and from the accompanying healing chants known as ícaros, which Olinda Silvano will perform live for the audience.
Join us for a magical and healing evening of Amazonian music, art, and visions.
“Kené is Shipibo art, identity, healing, plant energy, ayahuasca, piri piri. Kené is the path to our communities, to our farms. Kené is inspiration, born from within, never repeated. Kené is power, it is koshi, it empowers us women, it drives us forward. Kené is like our husband, our faithful companion. Sometimes we are discriminated against because we have not studied fine arts at university, but we have ancestral knowledge, or they look at us as if we were little children, but we are not little children, our thinking is big. Kené is ancestral memory, from our grandmothers, knowledge that comes from generation to generation. We are migrant artists in Lima, but we have not forgotten our roots. Kené, what we do, not only represents the Shipibo people, it represents Peru.”
– Olinda Silvano –
Participants
Alfredo Villar (Lima, Peru, 1971) studied Linguistics and Literature at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and Art History at the National University of San Marcos. He has been a Rockefeller Foundation fellow to research the internal armed conflict and write the script for the graphic novel Rupay. He has published several books and held various exhibitions of Amazonian art, such as El milagro verde (together with Christian Bendayán) and Usko Ayar: la escuela de las visiones. As a researcher of chicha folk art, he has presented the exhibitions A mí qué chicha, Neón Chicha, Chicha Land (Berlin), and El pueblo es una nostalgia que algún día vencerá by vernacular photographer Nicolás Torres.
In addition, he has curated exhibitions of comics, graphic humor, and drawing, such as Bumm! Historieta y humor gráfico en el Perú: 1978-1992 and La niña no mirada (together with Jorge Villacorta) by the pioneer of feminist art in Peru, Marisa Godínez. In 2022, he organized the exhibition Yuyay Lima, which brought together popular Amazonian, Andean, and urban artists, such as Olinda Silvano, with whom worked on the Koshi Kené Project in 2024. He is part of The Global Cultural Assembly at the Humboldt Forum. He is also a writer and DJ.
Olinda Silvano is an Amazonian artist from the Shipibo-Conibo community. Throughout her extensive career, she has developed her artistic production around textiles, painting, and mainly mural art.
She has participated in various contemporary art exhibitions such as Rivers can exist without water but not without banks (Museum of Contemporary Art of Lima, 2022), Mother plants and women fighters. Visions from Cantagallo (Lima Museum of Contemporary Art, 2022), where she participated as an artist and co-curator, THE SEEDS OF THE GODS. Entheogenic Art of the Peruvian Amazon (Casa Perú – Russia, 2018), and was part of the Peruvian delegation that participated in ARCOMadrid (Spain, 2019).
She came in second place for the representation of Peru at the Venice Art Biennale (2024) with the project Koshi Kené. The Power of Kené alongside artist Harry Chávez and curator Alfredo Villar. The project finally was realized at ICPNA gallery in Lima, Perú .
She has been recognized as a Meritorious Personality of Culture by the Ministry of Culture (2018), as well as receiving other awards from institutions such as the Congress of the Republic of Peru and the National University of San Marcos. She was recently recognized in Forbes’ list of “The 50 Most Creative People in Peru 2024”.
Andrea Scholz is curator for transcultural collaboration in the Ethnologisches Museum and Museum für Asiatische Kunst in Berlin. She is a trained anthropologist with a focus on Amazonia and has been working for 10 years in various collaborative projects with indigenous communities and educational projects, mainly in Latin America.
