Amoka’s Hort
Tatiana Arocha
Artist’s country of origen: Colombia – United States
Materials: Acrylic on canvas, gold
Size: 822 x 274 cm
Year: 2019
In conversation with Gory Nejedeka Jifichiu, a Muinane elder, Arocha deepened her understanding of the sacred plants, gardens, and ancestral knowledge of the Murui-Muinane people. During a visit to his maloca in the Colombian Amazon in July 2019, made possible through the Sustainable Arts Foundation fellowship for artist-parents, Arocha and her son Joaquín were warmly received by Gory and his family.
These conversations are documented in Arocha’s catalogs, recording Gory’s teachings about the jungle and mambe, a preparation primarily made from coca leaves and yarumo ashes, consumed with tobacco paste, called ambil. The experience expanded Arocha’s perception of the forest and the ancestral knowledge that sustains the land, maintaining its connectivity, diversity, and vitality.
In her large-scale work Amoka’s Garden, Arocha reconstructs the landscape of the Amazonian gardens of the reserve where she exchanged knowledge with Gory Nejedeka during her research travels in the Amazon.
The Artist
Tatiana Arocha
Tatiana Arocha is a Colombian artist born in New York in 1974, whose practice explores the intimacy between people and the land, personal memory, and her own experience as an immigrant.
