The Victims Unit supports the participation of eight victim enterprises that seek to rescue and preserve the ancestral traditions of their community in Expoartesanías. This space is part of the social pedagogy strategy of the general direction of Unit, in alliance with Artesanías de Colombia, and it also obeys to the integral reparation of victims.
The director of Unit, Ramón Rodríguez Andrade, highlighted the participation of victims in this space and the importance of having a place where they can show their reparation process and capacity for resilience. “It is the third year that we participate in Expoartesanías building a country and looking for that every day the resources that are given to the victims are used to generate income and improve their living conditions. It is a way to build capacities in their families,” said .
Ángela Mavisoy, from the village of Kamëntsa del Alto Putumayo, participates in this fair with the family brand “Arte ancestral”, in which they rescue the history of their people through traditional weaving.
“We seek to strengthen the ancestry with our handicrafts, we have emphasized in working with beads the masks carved in wood with gestures of process of colonization. The community was very run over and the only way of expressing that they had at that time was by means of gestures since they could not speak in their language either. Now we have been implementing new craft techniques, but we want to maintain the ancestral symbols such as frog, sun and river, “explained Mavisoy.
The Kamëntsa speak their own dialect and struggle permanently to maintain their oral tradition, the elderly are treated as “uncles” or “aunts” out of respect and synonymous with wisdom for them.
The creativity, plurality and identity built with the hands of victims of armed conflict are proof of the ability of art to transform environments and dignify the memory of survivors.
The connection with the ethnic, the folkloric and the magical make these artisan pieces in a social story that reflects the richness of Colombian territory. The relationship with nature, the word and the inhabited environments are a sign of the resistance of the victims to preserve their traditions.
Dora Sánchez is from Santa Rita Ituango, currently lives in Barranquilla and for six years she created her brand Grass Accesorios SAS, in the company of her daughter Gina Grass. Her designs are inspired by the Colombian nature, mainly in heliconias, carnations, orchids and daisies, and for their manufacture uses Czech beads, Murano crystals, pearls and hammered bronze with gold plating. For this occasion, Dora and Gina brought jewels that rescue the traditional shapes of concrete tiles.
“We went from being victims to being entrepreneurs, we have gone ahead with our products, each one of them offers the people who buy them the possibility of carrying a story in each piece of artisan”.
The motto of this year in Expoartesanías makes it clear that the victims and artisans of Colombia are “made of creativity”.
