The present work explores the presence of Andean textile imagery in the poetry and the visual art of Jorge Eduardo Eielson and Cecilia Vicuña with the goal of illustrating how these woven aesthetics enrich the content of the written word and other artistic media by supplementing them with non-verbal, visual and tactile planes of meaning. Through the discourse of the thread, Eielson and Vicuña generate an alternative means of expression that dialogues with the conventionality of human language, the creation of cultural memory and the connection between intercultural groups. To prove this thesis, I approach the authors’ poetry and visual art based on theoretical and cultural studies regarding the materiality and the visuality of the text and other media in combination with a comparative analysis of the structural and the design properties of Andean and indigenous cloth products, namely the tejido and the khipu. In addition to close readings of poems that illustrate how the presence of the textile augments the meaning of the written text, I also illustrate how Andean weaving aesthetics provide the metaphorical springboard of comparison upon which a critical analysis of their visual art is based. / text

In research, we frequently position “modernity” against “tradition” to explain cultural changes within the indigenous realm. Such is the case of Andean textile studies, where commercialization and modernity are frequently attributed to the decline in Andean communities’ production and donning of hand-woven textiles. By doing this, we distance ourselves from the underlying issues causing these changes: poverty, discrimination, ethnic social stratification, etc. Also, by positioning “modernity” outside and against the indigenous realm, we contribute to the notion that modernity belongs to the western world alone and can only be achieved by Western influence. In doing so, we confine Andean textiles to a static notion of identity and ignore and antagonize the creative strategies that weavers’ use, moving outside of this notion. My work questions the “tradition” versus “modernity” binary by analyzing its history and first appearance in Bolivian Andean textile scholarship, and by analyzing changes within Andean textiles between the Inca and Colonial periods. My study also sheds light on the workings of internal colonialism within Andean textiles in the Bolivian regions of Jalq’a and Tarabuco. / text