In 2008, I exhibited Pallai: Digitally Weaving Culture, honoring the significance of woven textiles in preserving the culture of the Indigenous people of the Andes. The central band in the weaving, the pallai, contains cultural information. There is tremendous variety in the designs of the pallai because each Indigenous community has its own visual vocabulary. The pallai can be decorated with animals, fantastic beings, and images of everyday life. Some pallai even address current political and social issues of the time.
Conceptually, I took the space of the walls and treated it as if the wall was a weaving. On the bottom of the wall was a stencil inspired by a plant design of the Kallawayas, the indigenous healers of the Andes. The artwork and interactive installations were placed in the central portion of the walls, the pallai. The exhibit included artworks inspired by the Inca, Potolo, Kallawaya, and Jalq'a weavings.
The exhibition was designed to be an interactive experience. The interactive games surrounded the three-foot cut metal sculptures crafted by Jeffery Spakes. On the llana, the part of the weaving that has no design, he used a patina on brushed metal to create the effect of woven fabric. The sides of the installations featured punched-out designs that reflected shadows on the wall. Between the three installations, there were Potolo-inspired creatures cut out of steel and painted with patinas.
Across the metal installation, on the left side of the wall, there was an arrangement of collages of Potolo and Jalq'a creatures. I printed out the designs of the Potolo creatures on rice paper or other very textured papers. Mark Huston molded small, recycled, cast aluminum creatures. On the right side of the wall was a series of paintings based on the tocapus, signs in the Inca culture, created with printed textured papers combined with acrylic paint.
