À Tarapoto, un Manati

Puerto Nariño, is a municipality located on the shore of the Amazon River, at the crossroad of the Colombian, the Peruvian and the Brazilian borders. There I met families of the Cocama community who told me the story of the Manati, a sacred and almost extinct animal living in the freshwater habitats of the AmazonBasin. I draw my inspiration from those stories that the young generation tend to forget about, to revive them in this new social context. Following the indications of an old sculptor, we carved the shape of this sacred animal in wood. I then asked a young taïta – a person initiated into the magical rituals – to travel along the river to the Tarapoto’s lake on its back. There he left it adrift along the currents.