Killamanta Kutimusaq::2006

Aluminum, digital print, 6 speakers,
6 channel soundscape

@ the Aldrich Museum of Art

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Killamanta Kutimusaq translates "To the Moon and Back" from the Quechua language. It was commissioned by the Aldrich Museum for an exhibition by the same title.

The structure is a ¾ scale model of the Apollo 11. The skin wrapped around it is a satellite image of the city Puerto Maldonado, in the Madre de Dios department of the Peruvian Rainforest and the surrounding area with the Manu and Madre de Dios rivers running through it.
 

The top of the structure holds speakers playing Icaro’s (medicine songs) sung by Don Ignacio during an Ayahuasca ceremony. The surrounding four speakers in the four corners of the courtyard play a soundscape from the rainforest surrounding Don Ignacio’s home in Infierno. The four outer speakers alternate play with Don Ignacio’s Icaros in the center as if they were conversing.

In Infierno, a small village 20km south of Puerto Maldonado I worked with Don Ignacio Duri Palomeque a master ayahuasquero, or healer. “Don Ignacio possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of the botanical pharmacopoeia of the jungle. He was one of the last of the “plant dreamers” receiving revelations from plant spirits on their nature, location and medicinal usage, resulting in his discovery of several species previously unknown to science.” 1.thoth