SHIPIBAS MURALISTAS
The Amazon flowing through the Concrete Desert
If only we had ears to listen to whom speak below capitalist myths and rumors.
If only we had eyes to see(k) knowledge beyond mental structures and national frontiers.
If only we recollected memory of the potential that lies within Indigenous ecological organization and collective imagination.
If only we participate in extending liveliness instead of holding greed and death on top of indifference and appropriation…
Maybe, we could rediscover a way to resist and coexist in solidarity with the abundant rhythms connecting our soils and waters.
The Depths of the Color Green
Painting a path is never clear; the shades of life simply begin to blend just as you attempt to distill them. In this attempt, life’s dizziness led me to the green vastness we now call Peru.
Crossing the blue of several oceans, there it was Venezuela, ready to uproot my eyes from the land where my grandparents had migrated, and which they also left behind carrying arepas and nostalgia in their souls. So I grew up with the invisible memory of a stagnant soil, the same one now playing at erasing borders, (dis)appearing behind a thousand clouds.
Above the clouds,
A fleeting moment contrasts the urge to plant roots where I don’t belong.
Below, my insignificant shadow hits Venezuela,
A golden river fills my eyes with its familiar pattern,
Unreachable.
Its borders become turbulence,
Fading away like glaciers,
While the Amazonia crumbles.
Lima: Hazard Zone
Our arrival in Lima felt like an orange-hued sunset dream, a colorful rarity welcoming us to a city increasingly painted in a gray without colors. We soon got caught by the relentless rhythm of constant traffic, storming every corner night and day. An ever-present drizzle accompanies the awakening of the metropolis—weightless rain crying over the sand of a lost desert replaced by the urban jumble. Our eyes strained to find a glimmer of light that might help us settle and get accustomed to the contradictions of a city where crime and extreme poverty coexist and feed the impassive stability of its currency: Lima’s true “Sol.”
Soon, a shooting overturned our one-way trip. We admitted that the circumstances were a tense gamble, a leap off Latin America’s cliff. But just as the city threatened our sheltered Western privilege, it also connected us to its dense web of mirages. Before fleeing the city, its theater introduced us to the tender solidarity of a shared struggle, full of valuable forms and gentle languages.
-12.142918610927081, -77.01772940026102 (Barranco)
We met Cadazar almost by chance. I was drawn to his “dibujitos con formas y fondos (drawings with forms and backgrounds?),” which inhabited the energies of the place and communicated with the concrete surrounding. Through lively murals, Lima gazed at us with the eyes of its people: desolate, profound, and at times harmoniously inquisitive. Where are you going? Where are you from? Look at me!
I looked at them and saw them again in Cada’s drawings. The affinity we felt with his tranquil aura was immediate, and the hours passed as he hand-tattooed my knees. I felt the ground slipping away beneath my feet, while simultaneously rooting myself more deeply in the cosmos he opened on my skin. We fantasized about the distant pre-Columbian ancestors who imbue and protect this creative ritual of protection.
My body resonated every time my shaman lowered the needle to my epidermis until faintness absorbed me into an upside-down world, spitting me out feet-first. I only needed a dish of cilantro-green arroz con pollo to fully awaken my pupils to the nuances of this perfumed color.
-12.040831196072462, -77.016476209297 (Cantagallo)
After some research, I arranged to contact the urban Shipibo-Conibo Indigenous community in Cantagallo, one of Lima’s poorest districts in the Rímac River valley. Despite uncertainty and distance, we accepted the invitation to visit and immerse ourselves in the community’s life.
Metza Kabi (Milka, in common Spanish) greeted us with a warm hug, guiding us into her safe space where the community had founded a self-managed bilingual primary school to plant education and hope for their children. That same day, they celebrated Flag Day with songs and dances echoing in the background of our conversations.
Zuiviri (Zoila) and Runun Rabi (Magda) awaited us at a low, round table. From there below, we listened to their Masha song welcoming us to the Amazonian cosmovision with simple joy. Sharing this moment, they showed us their articrafts and explained their kené art. The patterns in maya kené wove networks of earthly and spiritual connections. Ponte kené expresses the visionary wisdom of Shipibo women artists, while xao kené transmits ancestral heritage through geometric fi gures. Every kené design inhales and exhales nature. Here, the edges fl ow, oscillate, and intertwine, generating endless artistic complexities.
“We must envision to manifest,” Metza Kabi explained, describing the role of their plant teachers PiriPiri and Ayahuasca. Indeed, the mysterious kené paths are not merely aesthetic mantles but carry healing potential, as the plants has the power to reveal what needs to be healed, enlightening the way. Amid colonial struggles that have historically burdened indigenous communities, the women of Cantagallo began creating murals “to heal, share, and resist.” During the pandemic, they refused to abandon their community to isolation and strengthened their collective bonds by
painting their existence and deconstructing the dividing walls of the city that marginalizes them every day.
“In times of COVID, sacred plant remedies such as mí tico, honey, and eucalyptus were our main resources. Within the community, we protected each other by pooling our knowledge of medicinal plants. And if one didn’t work, we tried another. We are not afraid. We keep standing strong because we must support each other. As a collective, I feel we lack visibility. Why don’t the media share our advocacy? They don’t want to. They’re tied up. I feel that we, as indigenous and poor people, have no justice. But we also don’t sit idle. Whether they like it or not, we must defend our rights and sovereignty. Little by little, we move forward. Indigenous peoples of different ethnic groups—Shipibo, Awajún, Piro, Yanesha—are the guardians of our territories in the jungle, and climate change is affecting us greatly. Our Ucayali region has always been very rainy, but now our territories and forests suffer droughts. Our rivers dry up, and our banana, cassava, and corn crops fail. We, as indigenous peoples, work in agriculture and fishing. There used to be plenty, but now there isn’t because the water is contaminated by private companies entering our territories: oil companies and logging operations, machinery emitting polluting fumes that destroy virgin forests. It’s a total assault.
Today, Indigenous communities are fighting to safeguard the forests and defend their territories, and they are being killed: six Indigenous brothers were murdered this year, and the government never spoke out.
I was outraged when I learned about the abolition of the anti-deforestation law in February 2024. My daughter and I cried. The animals used to come very close to our homes—the monkeys, the sloths, the anacondas, all free, in beautiful, fresh forests. We enjoyed it so much when we lived there, and learning about all this deeply impacted me. I felt no fatigue as I went to protest. We have the right to demand and protect our territories; no one can take away what is ours. Forests provide clean air; they protect us. Forests are life, and the animals are our guardians. No one can take that away from us. Come what may, we are strong, united peoples, facing and solving this issue together. When we face such issues, everyone gathers, calling representatives from each community. This is how indigenous peoples fight.
I love my land. I am proud to be Shipiba.
With voices full of passion and tenderness, they sang their protective Ikaro song, closing the virtuous circle of a new friendship with us. And so, we said goodbye, finally trusting in the lessons our journey would bring along.
