Portraits of the Multiverse
Ana Sotelo
“Portraits of the Multiverse” is a visual investigation between Sadith Silvano, master of the Shipibo “Kené’’ artform and myself. Started in 2022, the project generates a visual dialogue about the Amazonian multiverse by combining photography with ancestral Kené embroidery.
Our collaboration addresses sustainability from an environmental and cultural perspective, questioning the colonial fracture that separates the human from the non-human when considering the natural world. By incorporating this ancestral language into images, the series invites the viewer to consider memory and spirit in contemporary representations of the Amazon.
The photographs, captured on the banks of the Shanay-Timpishka and Nanay Rivers, represent nearly eight years of my exploration with healing in the Amazon rainforest.
In them, I showcase elements of Amazonia using photography, while Sadith reveals the immaterial energy that flows across the jungle using kené embroidery. Kené, the visual language of the Shipibo people, represents the invisible energy of their universe. In a transition from the invisible world to the visible and back to the invisible, this series develops a dialogue about the Amazonian multiverse. The resulting series is a visual encounter between two languages that capture light through different means: photography and embroidery.
Petition to the Plant Spirits
Ronin, Serpent Spirit of the Universe
Came Renaco, Healing Tree
Came Renaco Bark for Preparing Medicine
Ayahuasca, Master Plant
Melipona
The Shanay Timpishka River (image 1 of 2-image diptych)
The Shanay Timpishka River (image 2 of 2-image diptych)
Spirits of the Jungle
Hummingbird
Ana Elisa Sotelo is a Peruvian photographer and educator whose work explores gender, culture, and our relationship with the natural world. Based in Washington, D.C., she teaches high school photography and photojournalism. She holds an M.A. in Film from American University and a B.A. in Psychology from George Washington University. She is a member of WPOW, Women Photograph, Diversify Photo, and Foto Féminas. Her collaborative projects, including Las Truchas and Portraits of the Multiverse, have been widely exhibited and honoured with awards such as the Louis Roederer Sustainability Prize.