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ARTICLES: ART'S LINK TO OUR STORIED PAST
We know the power of art of all kinds to send potent messages. Art is intertwined with who we are, what we do, where we live, and how we live. We are art-producing organisms, re-learning the story of the inseparableness of our creative selves and our journey through time.
Art Embraces Sustainability
protecting panama and its indigenous cultures
Panamá is sometimes referred to as a barrier between oceans, A bridge between two continents. Its women birthed a world-class art form.
It may take a mental stretch to link the burgeoning collector interest in a fairly new, world-class art form constructed from palm fibers with the protection of a fragile rainforest ecosystem from which these raw materials are taken, but that’s precisely what Wounaan Hösig Di are all about.
As the number of serious collectors of fine Panamá Hösig Di baskets grows around the world, so, too, does the awareness by the Panamanian government that the creators of these museum-quality works have the right to live peacefully on their lands without threat of squatters and drug runners.
Copyright © 2005 Lorran Meares
Art Changes Lives
protecting panama's rainforests
wounaan and Emberá peoples discovered how to transform a craft into sustainable income and initiate resource management programs
The Wounaan and Emberá peoples, who share the Darién with pockets of Kuna Indians, not only learned to live off this land in what is one of the most remote territories in the hemisphere, but they’ve also learned to rely on non-timber forest products (NTFP) as a primary income source. They weave natural fiber baskets—the highest quality found anywhere in the world, according to some collectors and museum curators. Opening the Darién could change all that.
Copyright © 2005 Lorran Meares
Art Empowers
Weaving Hösig Di, Fine Wounaan Baskets Made of Chunga
discovering the changing face of cultural identity
Faithfully, for nearly each of the last 1,000 days, Alina Itucama has been metamorphosing silk-like strands of a little-known fiber into jewel-toned butterflies and lush orchids. Since her teens, educated businesswoman and next-generation teacher Itucama perfected her needlework skills, which she painstakingly translates into collectible baskets, like the three-year masterpiece adorned with delicate butterflies and flowers, nearing completion. Itucama, one of 75 master artists selected from around the world to participate July 17-18 in the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, is Wounaan. Her people, which number only about 6,000, inhabit one of the world’s most beautiful and, like the motifs on her baskets, most fragile, places—the Darién Rainforest of Panamá.
Copyright © 2005 Lorran Meares
You've come to that bridge. Now cross it!
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