102
A. Ospina and A. López
1 Crafts and Indigenous Communities in Colombia
Craftsmanship is the representation of the cosmogony of an indigenous community
and its integral relationship with the environment. This form of art continuously
develops alongside its fundamental community values. These values, like social
norms and respect for the territory, are cultivated through the efficient and responsible
use of fibers, plants, fruits, and other elements of this creative process. Craftsmanship
must be understood as the cultural and material expressions of people with rooted
and plural identities. These have been taught through an oral tradition, which has
emphasized the union between nature and the human being.
For indigenous people, handicrafts arise as a process of creating a tangible, material recognition from the community and society at large, being an economic transformation in these communities, an effect of globalization [55]. In its doing, it is
recognized as a philosophy of life and political act, telling through symbols the history of the territory, its processes of struggle, resistance, as well as sociocultural
and political changes. This social focus, pictured along an evolutionary timeline, is
exposed through the fabric, colors, pintas
1 or shapes in each piece.
The different forms expressed in each of these handmade creations and identify the
community and its territory. It assertively represents its culture, through an allegorical
reading that allows the community to preserve and respect its idiosyncrasy and the
communities doing. “Crafts are made up of shapes or pintas that represent a deep
knowledge of nature and a transcendental symbolic and cultural content, which leaves
a community footprint in history” [7, p. 4].
According to Serrano [54], ancestral knowledge has been consolidated into material pieces to express the diversity of the world and the coexistence of different
worldviews as well as the ability of people to organize themselves, while optimizing natural resources. It also expresses the community capacity to build productive
processes and social structures that can withstand time and create institutions that
allow the communities to establish themselves as a society and generate bidirectional
relationships with the State.
This social fabric dynamic understands that craftsmanship is a vehicle to materialize cultural and social expressions, build a collective identity, and energize local
economies [51]. These dynamics are interconnected globally through cultural evolution and the transformation of sociopolitical narratives, such that there is a creative
symbiosis between the subject and the object.
Each handmade piece is thus a construction and manifestation of community
values as well as cultural identification. An art form is capable of weaving to the
rhythm of history and withstanding time, thus maintaining its connection with the
environment; art forms achieve to maintain its production ways from before the
industrial revolution until today (see Fig. 1).
1 It is the word used by indigenous communities to refer to the forms that appear in the crafts and
represent geometric figures, animals, plants, and other things.
A. Ospina and A. López
1 Crafts and Indigenous Communities in Colombia
Craftsmanship is the representation of the cosmogony of an indigenous community
and its integral relationship with the environment. This form of art continuously
develops alongside its fundamental community values. These values, like social
norms and respect for the territory, are cultivated through the efficient and responsible
use of fibers, plants, fruits, and other elements of this creative process. Craftsmanship
must be understood as the cultural and material expressions of people with rooted
and plural identities. These have been taught through an oral tradition, which has
emphasized the union between nature and the human being.
For indigenous people, handicrafts arise as a process of creating a tangible, material recognition from the community and society at large, being an economic transformation in these communities, an effect of globalization [55]. In its doing, it is
recognized as a philosophy of life and political act, telling through symbols the history of the territory, its processes of struggle, resistance, as well as sociocultural
and political changes. This social focus, pictured along an evolutionary timeline, is
exposed through the fabric, colors, pintas
1 or shapes in each piece.
The different forms expressed in each of these handmade creations and identify the
community and its territory. It assertively represents its culture, through an allegorical
reading that allows the community to preserve and respect its idiosyncrasy and the
communities doing. “Crafts are made up of shapes or pintas that represent a deep
knowledge of nature and a transcendental symbolic and cultural content, which leaves
a community footprint in history” [7, p. 4].
According to Serrano [54], ancestral knowledge has been consolidated into material pieces to express the diversity of the world and the coexistence of different
worldviews as well as the ability of people to organize themselves, while optimizing natural resources. It also expresses the community capacity to build productive
processes and social structures that can withstand time and create institutions that
allow the communities to establish themselves as a society and generate bidirectional
relationships with the State.
This social fabric dynamic understands that craftsmanship is a vehicle to materialize cultural and social expressions, build a collective identity, and energize local
economies [51]. These dynamics are interconnected globally through cultural evolution and the transformation of sociopolitical narratives, such that there is a creative
symbiosis between the subject and the object.
Each handmade piece is thus a construction and manifestation of community
values as well as cultural identification. An art form is capable of weaving to the
rhythm of history and withstanding time, thus maintaining its connection with the
environment; art forms achieve to maintain its production ways from before the
industrial revolution until today (see Fig. 1).
1 It is the word used by indigenous communities to refer to the forms that appear in the crafts and
represent geometric figures, animals, plants, and other things.