Geometric Rite

Sala de Carga Art Gallery, 2013. Santiago, Chile.

I start from the relationship between circularity, light and ritual, to address a problem about image and movement. These last two are concepts that function as a starting point for the project and are approached above all by their physical qualities: spatiality, shadow, hidden image, etc.

I relate the community around the circle, since it is around this geometry that learning, education about life, about perceptions, arises. In the Mapuche culture the circular form (wajme) is associated with the cosmovision, the surface of the earth in which we live would be a perfect circle, and this geometric figure is represented in their crafts, rituals and in the kultrun, Mapuche instrument.

The circle is present from the origins, this symbol allows in the human being a state of relaxation associated to the ritual of knowledge, to the mysteries of shamanism and to a state of prayer, known especially in the native origins of the cultures. One of the teaching rites performed by the American Indians was the game of light on an object; the seated children formed a circle and placed an eagle feather in the center, it was then understood that there are as many ways of perceiving the feather as there are people in the circle, this was a ritual exercise of learning about life.