Inti Raymi is one of the most important celebrations in the Andean calendar. For millennia, communities in the Andean region have celebrated the summer solstice, Inti Raymi, an important time to offer gratitude to Tayta Inti, to la Pachamama, and to celebrate life’s abundance through communal rituals and celebrations. For communities in the diaspora, Inti Raymi has taken many different forms, shifting and becoming a time for knowledge transmission and cultural resistance. This past year, COVID-19 has presented Andean communities with a difficult challenge, having to cancel in-person celebrations and rituals while, instead, finding creative ways of adapting and continuing with this tradition.
As Kichwa Runas of the diaspora, it has been our desire to collectively document the realities we are currently living as a community. Through this collective documentation we would like to highlight the resilience, joy and connection that is absent from mainstream narratives. Finally, we hope that this documentation, created by and for our communities of the Andean diaspora, strengthen our expressions and powers of self-representation of our traditions.
About the #IntiRaymiPacha 2020 Submissions:
We are happy to present the works submitted via email and social media of people who have felt that call to self-documentation and expression through mediums like art, photography, video, illustrations, and poems about what Inti Raymi looked and felt like in 2020. In 2020, submissions came in from 3 continents and many more countries around the world depicting a diversity of personal narratives around Inti Raymi. Please make sure to check these works out and follow the artists on social media.
Tukuy ñukanchik shukukunamanta Yupaychanchik!
This project is a collaborative project funded and organized by Kichwa Hatari
