Decorate Ekeka

At Silva Festival, a vibrant music festival in Unnaryd, surrounded by lake and forest, Art Inside Out and Valeria Montti Colque invite you to a workshop (9/7) and collective performance ritual (10/7) where the characters from her visual world come to life.

Together with musicians Ida Lod and David Heikkinen and artist Carlos Martinez, Valeria Montti Colque invites festival-goers and villagers to join in creating and decorating Ekeka.

Ekeka is a goddess inspired by El Ekeko – a figure that according to Andean folk belief symbolizes happiness and prosperity. The figure is inspired by the power, wealth and lives that every human being carries within. Here she takes the form of a three-meter-high sculpture that is adorned with robes, flowers and decorations, and is filled with magic, beauty and pride.

She is a mountain, a goddess, a cathedral.

The mantle that emerges together with the participants carries traces of shared memories, dreams and what has been – and what has not yet taken shape.

Nature our living room
Here I am at home
Walking through the Old Forest
Walking through my home
Walking through the seasons
Walking across land, square and ground
One morning
In the middle of my living room she stands one day an unshakable mountain
Holy mountains
Like a cathedral
Mamita Montaña
Saint Ekeka stands on the top

Excerpt from “The Hall of the Mountain Queen (and the Dragon)” by Valeria Montti Colque