Growing up I have always been surrounded by people of diverse cultural backgrounds especially those of African and Caribbean decent, this unfolded my interest in being educated in such cultures and how they link with one another and even so with my own Latin backgrounds. Culture to me is music, history, food, art and amongst many other things that provides us a sense of belonging and security. Despite being raised by native born Colombian parents I felt that I was not fully entuned with my heritage and my countries traditions, such as the practice and history of “Artesanias” which can be translates to craftsmanship. During the colonization of the America's ,56 million Indigenous people were killed almost wiping out a whole race hence why “Artesania” is so important for us, so our traditions survive. An indigenous tribe in Colombia called Sikuani have undergone many threats from both the Government and Guerrilla groups, the Sikuani people used “tejido” a specific technique used to weave as a form of passive resistance to remain in their land of “Aiwakuna Tsepajibo”.

 

Instead of using authentic palm leaves from Colombia I chose to use a bundle of Raffia to represent my heritage by braiding a long three stranded braid and weaving it into the shape of a bowl. The patterns on the bowl represents the tails of cats as it is a personal pet of mine, something the Sikuani people would also do to show gratitude to animals.Indigenous people would createany object that they would need, for example a basket to carry crops ora “sombrero” to protect them from the sun, hence why I made a bowl an object very convenient to anyone’s lifestyle.