Venado

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Artist/Maker Celia Vasquez Yui (Shipibo-Conibo People of Peru, born 1960)

Date2021

MediumCoil-built pre-fire slip-painted clay and vegetal resins

DimensionsOverall: 17 1/4 in. × 8 in. × 23 in. (43.8 × 20.3 × 58.4 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, William G. Roehrick '34 Art Acquisition and Preservation Fund

Object number2022.8.1

On view

DescriptionVenado (deer) is one of more than fifty endangered creatures recreated in clay by the artist and Indigenous rights activist Celia Vasquez Yui. A member of the Shipibo-Conibo people from the Peruvian Amazon, the artist constructs her animals by using the ancient ceramic technique of hand-coiling clay, using materials from the local environment. The abstract patterns etched onto the creatures—known as kené in Shipibo language—are part of a codified system of design that encompass areas of perception beyond the visual and are believed to be able to shift energy and to heal. Vasquez Yui began creating ceramics alongside her mother and now works with her daughter Diana Ruiz Vasquez. They ritually prepare to create each ceramic work, much like a shaman would before a ceremony. The Shipibo-Conibo Center, has requested that the following text always be displayed alongside the work: Matteo Norzi of the Shipibo-Conibo Center writes, "If the order of Shipibo designs can be understood as a visual manifesto of the commitment to the core values of Indigenous ethics, and to protocols of conviviality, reciprocity, and kinship that extends beyond the human to animal, plant, land, and water, it is within these principles that the artistic collaboration between Celia Vasquez Yui and the Shipibo-Conibo Center is rooted. This implies an understanding that the work of art, the work of environmental activism, and the struggle towards Indigenous sovereignty cannot be separated; they must move forward on the same path." www.shipiboconibo.org

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