Elvira Espejo Ayca

Elvira Espejo Ayca is a plastic artist, weaver and narrator of the oral tradition of her place of origin (ayllu Qaqachaka, Avaroa province, Oruro). A speaker of Aymara and Quechua, she is the Director of the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore in La Paz, Bolivia. Author of the publication Sawutuq parla (2006) and the book of poems Phaqar kirki-t ́ikha takiy takiy – Canto a las Flores (2006), for which she received the prize for International Poet in the fourth World Festival of Venezuelan Poetry (2007) and Kaypi Jaqhaypi Por aquí, por allá (2018). Co-author of Hilos sueltos: Los Andes desde el textil (2007), Ciencia de las Mujeres (2010), Ciencia de Tejer en los Andes: Estructuras y técnicas de faz de urdimbre (2012), El Textil Tridimensional: El Tejido como Objeto y como Sujeto (2013) and Tejiendo la vida: La Colección Textil del Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore, según la cadena de producción (2013). In collaboration with the Bolivian musician Álvaro Montenegro, she produced the contemporary music DVDs Thakhi – La Senda Canciones a los animales (2007) and Utachk kirki – Canto a las casas (2011). She won the Eduardo Avaroa first prize in Arts, Native Textiles Specialty, La Paz, Bolivia (2013), and the first prize for Native Creation in Literature, Poetry Specialty, in the fifth edition of the Arica Barroca Festival of South Andean Art, Chile (2018).