The Visible and the Imperceptible
Ariana Pirela Sánchez

During her residency at ´ace, Ariana Pirela Sánchez worked on Lo visible y lo imperceptible (Visible and imperceptible) a performative installation inspired by the legend of Wale’kerü of the Wayúu people (native culture located in northern Colombia and Venezuela). For those for whom weaving more than a cultural practice is a way of conceiving and expressing life.

Wale’kerü is the weaver spider that, together with the care of the grandmother, mother and aunts, teaches the young Wayúu women the secrets of weaving. Legend has it that when Wale’kerü woke up at dawn, she had already made sashes and hammocks, and when the Wayúu asked her how she had done it, the spider began to tell them. Wale’kerü first taught a single Wayúu woman and thus, the textile tradition of this people was born. The female figure in Wayúu culture is as important and immortal as their weavings. Ariana uses this metaphor of female transmission of teachings to weave and unweave the threads of memory and thus reweave the forgotten stories. It is a search in our ways of constructing ourselves in time from the corporeality of matter. Time from the corporeality of matter and space. The construction from the knottings is used as a symbol of the structuring of memory and history.