Traces of Color
2018
Peruvian textiles have developed through out time with its different compositions, colors, and images but the essence from where it all began since the time of pre Columbian cultures is still there. This has been an evolution that has been captured in the Andean fabrics that allowed the ancient cultures register their way of living, customs, the colors of nature, symbols and beliefs. Most importantly, the fabrics have been a way to pass on information and knowledge due to a lack of written language. Successfully after centuries the textiles have been able to survive the passing of time and it is possible now to read and understand through the colors and imagery the information these ancient cultures developed.
In the Andean regions of Peru, there’s a surviving language that still exists till these days called Quechua (Under the Inca Empire, Quechua became the main language for trade and communication in the Tawantinsuyo “Inca Empire”), which never developed an alphabet. In recent times, this native language has been slowly disappearing, this probably has to do with how the language has been suppressed through its existence. “Quechua is considered a low-prestige language and quechua native speakers in the big cities consider speaking the language as an admission of undesirably low social background.” However, in Ayllon’s opinion this language carries with it beautiful qualities that sadly are not appreciated.
During the execution of this Project, Traces of color, Ayllon discovered things that he did not know. For example, in this language, the native of his country, the word goodbye does not exist, always the hope of finding ourselves again, whether in this life or in some other, for the Andean inhabitant there is also a life afterwards and the security of the reunion is a fact.
Unlike this sweet and wonderful language that is gradually disappearing there are ancestral customs that remain over time, and the textile is one of them, women weave from the pre-Inca era and until now when you travel to the Andes you see them always weaving, the colors have been varying feeding on the arrival of the technology of the new times, the representations have also changed, but they are still a reference of what they were.
It is undoubtedly this motive that inspired Ayllon to use them in his work as a connector in time as a starting point, like a very definite feature of his culture that refuses to disappear. Building upon this task, Ayllon’s textile installation focuses on the idea that the word “goodbye” does not exist in Quechua. In response the artist has created a series of synthesized color compositions, each representing a Quechua phrase that encourages reunion instead of bidding farewell. Ayllon was inspired by imagery from ancient Peruvian cultures along with colors and patterns, which resemble the actual fabrics that are still produced to this day.