Embracing Pachakuti
STATEMENT
Embracing Pachakuti is an alternative process photography and found object-based installation depicting a window into a post-apocalyptic world. Derived from the Quechua words “pacha” meaning time-space or world and “kuti” meaning upheaval or renewal, the Andean concept may be interpreted as a hopeful future in which humans have found symbiosis with each other and our non-human relatives or as a warning in which our plant relatives have found balance without us.
An apocalypse may be a global or personal phenomenon – a community being forced to leave their homes, rapid climate change, a pandemic, the death of a loved one. Indigenous peoples from Abya Yala (so called South & Central America) and Turtle Island (so called North America), have been experiencing apocalypse for over 500 years. Yet, we are still here generations later, community-making, legacy-holding and protecting the land for our future descendants. There is always a path forward.
The decisions we make as individuals and communities in the present inform our future as a species. What future are we working toward? Do you see humans in this post-apocalyptic world?
On a personal note, this installation is dedicated to a friend and brilliant Indigenous artist and scholar who passed unexpectedly in 2025. Her work and words brought light to Indigenous and LGBTQIA+ communities and everyone in between. One set of Khipu in this installation spell her name. Funerary Khipu lead the deceased into the afterlife where they become ancestors. May her ancestral light shine as brightly as it did in life.
Materials List:
Earth Scroll #1, #2, #5: chemigram murals on Ilford silver gelatin paper, Symbiotic Relatives: pruned chemigrams on expired silver gelatin paper, Khipus: knotted cords made from recycled synthetic yarn, Inka cotton yarn dyed with yellow onion skin and chlorophyllin dye, Rambouillet yarn from Lana Plantae dyed with indigo and cyanotype emulsion, Iron & steel rescued from the Limington Transfer Center and donated by my mother & sometimes collaborator, Asherah Cinnamon