Dreaming in Condors
NOMASMETAFORAS
Artist’s country of origen: Colombia – Francia
Medium: Sculpture, Performance
Materials: Canvas masks covered with yanchama fiber, filled with coca leaves, lavender, tobacco, white sage, eucalyptus, and datura; supported by black synthetic mesh, synthetic ribbons, sheep’s wool, and strips of yanchama pigmented with coca charcoal and palo santo charcoal.
Size: 150 x 90 x 30 cm
Year: 2023
Line of Inquiry:
Dreaming in Condors originates from a vision experienced by Clara Melniczuk in Puracé (Cauca), where two condors flew in perfect synchrony, following two human figures on the ground. From that dream, the artist collective NOMASMETAFORAS — formed by Melniczuk and Julián Dupont — conceived these sculptures as transitional bodies between dream and wakefulness, the human and the more-than-human.
The masks, crafted from yanchama — a traditional Amazonian bark cloth — and filled with sacred plants such as coca, tobacco, and datura, function as portals activated by vegetal memory. Each material component participates in a symbolic system that binds matter, spirit, and territory.
In collaboration with the Universidad Autónoma Indígena Intercultural (UAIIN–CRIC), the collective sustains a practice of co-creation that interlaces art, pedagogy, and ancestral knowledge, extending the work beyond its physical form into a field of spiritual and political resonance.
The Artist
NOMASMETAFORAS
NOMASMETÁFORAS is a contemporary art and research collective founded by Clara Melniczuk and Julián Dupont, whose work unfolds between Colombia and France at the intersection of art, philosophy, and Indigenous epistemologies.
