What does the word ‘Amazon’ mean to you?
The Amazon River basin, also known as Amazonia, represents my house, my home. It’s where we live and will continue to live, among its incredible biodiversity.
What is your first memory of the Amazon?
It’s the place where I was born, grew up, and have lived, surrounded completely by nature. The jungle has been my pharmacy, my school, my market – where all the needs of my community are being met.
Where do you feel most at home?
I feel most at home in my people’s Collective Territory [editor’s note: In Peru, Collective Territories are lands owned by Indigenous communities]. My community is where I find tranquility and peace, and where all my relatives are.
What defines your people, the Shipibo-Conibo nation?
The Shipibo-Conibo nation represents our ancestral territory; Non Nete in our language. Non Nete, which literally means ‘our world,’ is defined by a set of relationships unfolding through time. It is not just a static geographical reference, but denotes an interdependence between different lives – plants, animals, and humans. It is also defined by a mutual trust and connection between the different realms, especially between the world of water – the underworld – and the world of ideals or spirits up in the sky. Because of the continuous relationships between these realms, Non Nete also stands for an aspiration, an attempt to ensure that these relationships remain harmonious and ensure the flourishing of life.
What figure best represents the Amazon?
The great anaconda, Ronin, Mother of all Mothers, owner of the rivers and tropical forests, with its mountains and biodiversity. The one whose skin contains all possible designs.
What is your typical day like?
In my daily life, I focus on appreciating and applying my community's knowledge. I meditate and reflect on my designs, on my color combinations. I paint, I cook, and I always take care of the people around me. My artwork and my life in general are an expression of love and care for others.
What would you say are the most important things you learned from your community?
To live in harmony with nature. I learned family unity and the benefits of collective property. I learned about the importance of caring for our territory and the teachings of our ancestral sages. I learned about the need for reciprocity with the beings at the core of our biodiversity and with the members of my community. I also learned about kené, our artistic system, passed down by our grandmothers. Kené is the emblem of our culture, it represents the Shipibo worldview, and serves as a visual manifesto of our ethical commitments.
What do you think unites the artistic practices – painting, music, etc. – performed by Amazonian artists?
The harmony of nature, which is our worldview, [that exists] between the sky, the earth, the water and all its biodiversity. Our spiritual understanding of ecology, where each being, tree, plant, animal, and river has its mother spirit. For me it is a ‘whole’ that we must protect, because we, the Amazonian women, with our artistic works, are integrators of the Amazon, not disintegrators.
Which work or works of art best represent the Amazon?
My works on wild cotton canvas, because they are works made by my hands, designed by my thoughts and after much meditation, using the materials of the territory. The plants we use to produce the dyes, the clay comes from the rivers – all this carries the kené that I make. I integrate our culture, the space, the land, its biodiversity, and the sources and tributaries of the Amazon River into my imagination and my dedication to the work.
What is the most unique aspect of living in your community?
We live communally, collectively, with principles of reciprocity. We share without stinginess, because we are a united and supportive family.
What do you miss most when you are away from home?
Family unity and solidarity, especially my daughters, with whom I share our knowledge and designs. We are a matriarchy. Also, my typical and natural foods, our drinks like chapo, masato, and our medicinal plants and plant teachers.
Your best advice for those who wish to visit the Amazon?
Come to our Amazon – where the Indigenous communities and their territories are – for reciprocal teachings. I teach you and you teach me, always respecting the laws of nature and integrating the rules of reciprocity, and learn through the worldviews of the Indigenous people, in this case, the Shipibo-Conibo People.
What is the most important aspect of your artistic practice?
It is the invitation to reciprocity, to good living. My artistic practice gives me the resources to share, to support my community members, and to support the dream of the Shipibo Nation. I want my work to be an agent of change, [for us] to be able to return to be owners of our territories, and to recover a world that is now radically disabled by colonialism and constantly eroded by the exploitation of nature. My work wants the regeneration of a new world.
A note by Sara Flores about her name
‘We have Spanish names, but also ‘true names’ of the kind that were used prior to European colonization. True names are kept quite confidential or used for intimate settings, only among family. They are conferred on us in different circumstances by the grandparents, who name us after someone skilled, hard-working, or strong, so that when we grow older, we share some of those same qualities. We may be named by the midwife at the time when the umbilical cord is cut. Other times, we are named by the healer in a curing session. You can call me Sara Flores, but my true name is Soi Biri. The terms translate as something dazzling, beautiful to watch, smooth, and well ordered. Funnily enough, these are often the words used when people talk about my work.’
Sara Flores is represented by Clearing (New York, Brussels, Los Angeles). Her first solo show in Europe is scheduled to open on December 12 at White Cube, Paris. She lives and works in Yarinacocha, and is part of the Shipibo-Conibo People, an Indigenous group spread out alongside the Ucayali River. Flores redistributes her income by supporting various forms of Indigenous resistance in the Amazon and challenges the accumulation paradigm that prevails in the West.
All photos and videos by Helena De Bragança.
Published on November 24, 2023.