Quechua is a very sweet language. Perhaps I feel this way because it is my ancestral mother tongue in danger of extinction, and because I feel nostalgic about being part of a culture with an ancient language, silenced, forgotten, invisible, and because I feel at the same time that we are all losing, and by all I mean humanity, another language that will be lost. Its sound opens a portal of memories deeply immersed in the nature that saw me grow up and that I saw as I grew up.
The title of this exhibition of paintings, Ambi yaku, suddenly sprang forth in the middle of a painting session, in the same way that water is born, in the same way that the paint flowed onto the canvases, it came out of the silence of the painting workshop sessions as color, or as a revelation or a synchronicity in a dialogue with the past that I maintain with this ancient language, which reminds me, for example, how the Ingas heal bodies by bathing them with leaves from the rainbow tree that grows on the riverbank, or combat babies' fear by giving them the foam from the waterfalls to drink.
(Text by Carlos Jacanamijoy)









![Claudia Alarcón & Silät, Oyhil ta iwo lhipa — Nuestros tejidos unidos [Nossos tecidos unidos] [Our united fabrics] (detail), 2025. Courtesy of MASP](http://media.meer.com/attachments/dd97ee9e1b36d32859e66cf2dad9f28b8350ae35/store/fill/330/330/6dff01b54b188468f916f91a879dd82d8693b8cc02c1ef3efef17d2aae01/Claudia-Alarcon-and-Silat-Oyhil-ta-iwo-lhipa-Nuestros-tejidos-unidos-Nossos-tecidos-unidos-Our.jpg)
![La Chola Poblete, Sem título [Untitled], Da série Hasta la tristeza es distinta con el sol [Até a tristeza é diferente com o sol] [From the series Even sadness is different with the sun] (detail), 2025. Courtesy of MASP](http://media.meer.com/attachments/c2e2bcc5e70b3e8024ec72a4ea8092304839e64d/store/fill/330/330/3066a4602b72c3b9962b6efe3c521543d81e0d0dc431dd4968942a763f64/La-Chola-Poblete-Sem-titulo-Untitled-Da-serie-Hasta-la-tristeza-es-distinta-con-el-sol-Ate-a.jpg)
![Sandra Gamarra, El que no tiene de inga tiene de mandinga I [Quem não tem inga tem mandinga I] [Those who don't have inga have mandinga I] (detail), 2007. Courtesy of MASP](http://media.meer.com/attachments/fd8f587f45f78bee6c7685af3fd629205e087023/store/fill/330/330/37d016e482ee1b67fbce84e765502a4b9eec17f222f41a7b6f800ef3fc7c/Sandra-Gamarra-El-que-no-tiene-de-inga-tiene-de-mandinga-I-Quem-nao-tem-inga-tem-mandinga-I.jpg)




