Chanccani Quipu,

2012

Quipus, used by the Inka to record information in knots and string, are central to Vicuña’s work. They become a medium for her poetry, sculpture, performances, and ephemeral land art installations. For Vicuña, quipus evoke the ways in which language is tied to land, colonialism, and problems of translation. Chanccani Quipu is a bilingual work that Vicuña describes as “a metaphor in space; a book/sculpture that condenses the clash of two cultures and worldviews: the Andean oral universe and the Western world of print.” Following the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas, the colonizers imposed their own writing systems and spelling conventions on the oral tradition of Quechua, the primary language of the Indigenous peoples of the Andes. Combining the form of the quipu with a poem she wrote in Spanish, Vicuña reveals how Indigenous and colonial knowledge is inextricable from contemporary culture.