Elvira Espejo Ayca – the Bridge Builder

Bolivian multi-artist and museum director Elvira Espejo Ayca was awarded the Goethe Medal in 2020. In May 2022, she visited Berlin and Dessau on a networking tour in connection with this award.
 

A dark room right at the end of the exhibition in the Bauhaus Museum in Dessau. The Bauhaus network - an enormous web of taut threads with nodes, intersections, and branches, with countless names in between. Elvira Espejo Ayca takes a close look at the threads and names. The Bauhaus itself is also a network that has always been on the move. People came into contact and exchanged views; ideas spread across countries and continents. Intentionally designed in analogue form, this installation invites visitors to discover more about and engage with the Bauhaus for themselves. 

Connecting threads

Getting to the bottom of things, exploring things, allowing different perspectives to come together – that’s how Elvira Espejo Ayca describes the common thread running through her own diverse and multi-faceted artistic work. In her latest article “La crianza mutua de las artes” (“Mutual nurturing of the arts”), Elvira Espejo Ayca examines the intertwining influences of research, art and culture, and of poetry, song, textiles and the visual arts. 
 

Threads and textiles play a major role in Elvira Espejo Ayca’s life. As a child growing up in the isolation of the Bolivian plateau, she learnt  the traditional skill of weaving. Later, she left her village community and went her own way, studying art at the Hernando Siles National Academy of the Fine Arts in La Paz. The influence of her indigenous roots can be seen in many of Elvira Espejo Ayca’s works and projects.

Thus, on her trip to Dessau, Elvira Espejo Ayca is particularly interested in the work of Anni Albers, head of the weaving workshop at the Bauhaus, who undertook many trips to South America to learn from the indigenous communities there. Elvira Espejo Ayca sees herself, too, as a bridge builder between the ancestral knowledge of communities and urban, academic life. She aims to be a cultural mediator and to enable people to see, think and, above all, feel.

Building bridges between life worlds and art forms

The poet, visual artist, musician and weaver Elvira Espejo Ayca was awarded the Goethe Medal partly for her directorship and new concept for the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore (MUSEF) in La Paz. Her aim is to create a new, different perspective on education. For example, in her project “Tejiendo la vida” (“Weaving life”), she has compiled a catalogue about weaving. Elvira Espejo Ayca also aims in particular to bring education to rural regions, for example, with the “Museo Portátil” (“Portable Museum”), which comes to people in villages and isolated places in Bolivia.
 

Building bridges is also the task of the Goethe-Institut Visitors Programme which, in close coordination with Sabine Nietzsche, Director of the Goethe-Institut in La Paz, organised the one-week trip to Germany for Elvira Espejo Ayca. As well as the Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, the itinerary included visits to the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures), the Iberian-American Institute and the Humboldt Forum in Berlin. This networking tour is a unique experience, said Elvira Espejo Ayca. She had visited Germany on a previous occasion a few years ago for an exhibition at the House of World Cultures. At that time, she did not know anyone and was preoccupied with her exhibition. Now, she has many contacts in Germany and is delighted to meet them again in Berlin and Dessau. And this time, she finally has time to see all the museums and exhibitions.

She is soaking it all up and will need some time after the trip to process all the impressions. The educational approach of this trip, cultural and artistic exchange, is outstanding: making professional contacts, travelling and discovering – excelente!

Networking tour “Bauhaus in South America – Networking trip to Germany for Goethe Medal Winner Elvira Espejo Ayca“, at the invitation of the Goethe-Institut
Cities visited: Berlin, Dessau
Period of travel: May 2022