Kukuli Velarde

Centre Street Building, Level 2A

Wak’a del Agua by Kukuli Velarde is on view in Latin American Art / Arte Latinoamericano.

Kukuli Velarde’s Wak’a del Agua is the first work in a new series entitled De Las Wak’as y Las Pachamamas that celebrates the memory of ancient Andean religious entities. In this installment of the series, Velarde references the Inca tradition of stacking stones to mark a place as a sacred, sentient being—a wak’a in the Quechua language of the Andes. People continue to consider wak’as as mythical ancestors who act as family members, hardened into everlasting stone. These ancestors are kept alive through stories told by their descendants. Velarde narrates her Indigenous origins in this piece through five ceramic “stones,” each linked to a unique period of Peruvian history.

You can learn more about Velarde’s’ work on Free Admissions, the museum’s podcast.

Artist Statement
All “deities” are created equal, ubiquity should be granted to them all. The project finds/creates entities of Andean conceptualization in Philadelphia or any city of the world. “Recognizing” them beyond Peruvian borders, it places their existence in our present.

Wak’a del Agua is water, present in almost exact quantities for billions of years in lakes, rivers, oceans and the atmosphere, including the rocks of the inner Earth. Water was here before us and will be witness of our demise, inscrutable, its life-giving power is immense.

The entity has five levels. The bottom references Wari textiles. The graphics were converted to English and Spanish, in an effort to hear the Wak’as voice. The Wak’a says “Before you, and always” and “Antes que tú, y siempre.”

There is a segment of a serpent crossing from left to right.

Above the bottom piece there is a piece with Inka minimalism, another segment of the serpent, with a grid design, goes from left to right, implying a continuous embrace.

The third form are four faces together, referencing the population condemned to transition to an aesthetic that doesn’t reflect them in the colonization period. It is adorned with armed angels, inspired by the Spanish tile making tradition, also inspired by the Arabic tile tradition. A blue ribbon crosses, again from left to right, suggesting the continuation of the serpent found below.

On top goes an elongated shape with faces of diverse groups of people representing the republic era. My mother’s and my daughter’s faces are among them.

Finally the present is symbolized by a “Chavín head” with fluorescent pigmentation. Humans, we create with the materials that are available to us, fluorescent colors were not possible at any time, but they are today.