ARRULLOS

Juliana Gongora Rojas, 2021

Yinela Piranga Valencia and Juven Piranga Valencia are leaders of

the Coreguaje Ko’revaju Indigenous community and their workshop,

Masipai “wise people”, in Florencia, Colombia. Together with their

people, they have worked in a complex process of recovery of ancestral

knowledge, continuously affected by the armed conflict in Colombia.

Today the Coreguaje Ko’revaju—which is in their language “people of

the earth”—talk to us about cooing.

In the voice of Juven and Yinela:

Coming to this world is the greatest privilege because of the possibility

we have of coexisting with creation and to know how to choose

between good and bad.

The grandmother contains the whole. Her presence is vital in the

moment of birth. She is the means by which the baby reaches the

arms of creation. Through her hands, her knowledge and her word, the

whole is manifested.

The grandmother’s presence tells us: whatever happens, I will be

there. The elders are the lullaby.

The cooing brings certainty

The cooing is a here I am, calm, quiet, calm

Cooing is confidence

I am near, listen to the heartbeat

When the mother breastfeeds the child, a conversation is created

between them that transcends words. In their encounter they weave

a language. The baby and the mother become one. Mother and child

perceive what they need and feel without speaking.

Seeing the movement of the mother’s lips and feeling the throbbing

of the veins pumping, the baby understands that the sound of the heart

is the cooing of the earth.

Hearing the cooing of the earth, the baby will know how to take care

of it because it will feel no difference between its skin, the mother’s

skin and the surface of the earth.

Our skin is an extension of the skin of the earth.

To approach the reality of cooing is to listen to the elders saying:

“Don’t run, there is no hurry:

Don’t run, there is no eagerness.

We are all going to get to the same place.”

Our elders are active, accompanying us, approaching us through

dreams and words. Their voice is a lullaby and the effects of their

words do not rest. The word of the elders has been around for

thousands of years, and it is sweet, not bitter.

The elders are at work, they are attentive.

A grandfather said: “I am in the hammock, but my spirit is in the world”.

While the human being rests, someone is lulling him: nature itself.

“The water lulled me and in that movement I rest.”

Cuerpo de Leche (Body of Milk), 2022 

woven milk yarn, rue, steel, water, lime

Courtesy the artist & Galería Espacio Continuo

Interested in family histories and the symbolic associations of materials, Juliana Góngora embarks in long-durational, labor-intensive processes to create intricate sculptural objects. Cuerpo de Leche (body of milk) is the result of several years of trial and error in her quest to weave a textile out of a delicate thread made from milk. Working with scientists as well as traditional weavers, she gradually understood the particularities of this common material, very rarely used for art making since its organic nature makes it unstable and prone to decay. She finally mastered the technique, creating threads that have to be woven immediately before they lose flexibility and become brittle. The resulting textile is shaped after the tombstone of her grandfather and is placed on a bed of rue, a herb that in her native Colombia is believed to have cleansing properties. 

“With the weaving of milk I want to reconstruct the material and affective link with the maternal. This gesture is born as a material expression charged with affection, which seeks to give continuity to life in death and to cover the body with the first material contact -elemental and primary- that we have at birth, food.”