Diamilda Bardales Vásquez
Embroiderer · painter · jeweller
Pueblo Nuevo de Alcacocha
Her signature is mayakené — the curving designs of rivers and the anaconda, the pattern that comes from the head of the serpent where the kené was first revealed.
Artisans · Kene Rao Foundation
Master artisans.
One visual language.
Every kené that passes through kene.world is made, signed and paid at its source.
We work with the Kene Rao Foundation, a collective of embroiderers and painters in and around Pucallpa working to preserve Shipibo-Konibo design tradition — in communities between twelve and twenty hours by boat from the city.
Every piece is signed by its maker. Every piece pays its maker. Nothing is anonymous, and nothing is stylised into a nameless "artisan".
The roster
The hands the
lines belong to.
Simi Vásquez Maldonado
Master embroiderer
Nueva Nazareth
Wears shokené well — the oldest pattern of the Shipibo, from sho, the word for bone, and specifically the bones of the fish.
Clara Celis Ramos
Embroiderer · painter · ceramicist
San Francisco de Yarinacocha
Embroiders, paints, makes ceramics and jewellery — a complete master of every craft her mother knew.
More artisans work with the foundation than appear here; this page grows as portraits and permissions come through from Pucallpa.
What she feels
When a woman is bordando, in her thought are the rivers, the fish, the ancestors. She feels she is inside the forests, she connects with the ancestral world. Demer
The embroidery is a meditation. The cloth is what remains after the meditation is over.
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Work comes from Pucallpa a few pieces at a time. Leave your email for first access to each release.