Wine with the Artist: Olinda Silvano

Presented in partnership with the UCLA American Indian Studies Center as part of its Mellon grant initiatives, this public conversation will bring together Shipibo-Konibo artist and cultural leader Olinda Silvano with collaborators Erick (Ronin) Arias Silvano and Sadith Esther Silvano Inuma, in dialogue with moderator Shannon Speed, director of the UCLA American Indian Studies Center; professor of American Indian studies, gender studies, and anthropology; and special advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous affairs.

The conversation will center on kené, the intricate geometric design system of the Shipibo-Konibo people of the Peruvian Amazon, exploring it not only as a visual form but also as a living language of connection, memory, and healing. Topics will include kené as embodied knowledge transmitted through song and painting; the relationship between sound, intention, and visual practice; and how collaborative family-based artistic processes sustain intergenerational transmission.

The artists will also discuss the materials and ecologies of kené practice in the Amazon, including relationships to land and changing access to natural resources; as well as the experience of sustaining Shipibo-Konibo cultural life in the urban Indigenous community of Cantagallo in Lima. They will further consider how kené shifts and expands when presented in contemporary art contexts, such as museums and international exhibitions; and how Indigenous knowledge systems challenge and extend Western categories of art, language, and spirituality.

Based in Cantagallo, Silvano has developed a practice that bridges ancestral knowledge and contemporary artistic production, expanding kené into painting, textiles, and large-scale mural work. As Silvano paints, she sings, activating each design as a multisensory expression of Shipibo-Konibo cosmology. Erick (Ronin) Arias Silvano and Sadith Esther Silvano Inuma bring additional perspectives on collaboration, transmission, and creative practice within this shared artistic lineage.

This program is co-presented by the Fowler Museum, the CMRS–Center for Early Global Studies, the UCLA Latin American Institute, and the Consulate General of Peru in Los Angeles

Photo by Jhonatan Cortegana Veldare