Faculty of Art

Sculpture/Installation

Andrea Veintimilla

Templo de Reflejo

I want to spatially represent land, the sacred, and the cultural ancestry of the Ilaló Mountain. My work is a public art proposal for the Ilaló Mountain in Ecuador called Templo de Reflejo. It is a space to contemplate land, connect with the sacred, and ancestral culture. The space connects the viewer with nature and incites feelings of belonging and care.

“It all started with an urge to belong. Until recently, I was an Ecuadorian living in Canada. Miles away from my family, my friends, and my culture. I felt out of place in the large city of Toronto and the cold weather did not help. As you may have read in the essay I sent you a few months ago, I realized that space can aid in feeling belonging. The north hall of the AGO made by Frank Gehry, was a space that helped me feel belonging. It was a silent space where I could slow down and contemplate the city. It created this sublimic and uncanny feelings that produced an admiration for where I was standing. And that did not only mean the AGO, it meant Toronto. I felt I belonged, as a foreigner, to Toronto. This belonging incited feelings of care for the land. The space made me more conscious of where I was and made me wonder who came before me. The north hall of the AGO was just a small example of what space can do. I knew I wanted to concentrate my thesis in creating a space that aids the viewer to feel belonging and a deeper connection with its surroundings. At first, I thought this belonging and connection came from a spiritual factor. The sublime and the uncanny, for me, represent a feeling of transcendence. This is why at the beginning of my thesis project, I focused on researching religious architecture. I thought that it was my way into understanding how to create the sublime and the uncanny. However, after reading indigenous notions of place. As The Land is The Best Teacher I’ve Ever Had by Cynthia Chambers. I realized that the feelings of belonging and connection with my surroundings maybe did not come from a spiritual factor. It came from a connection with place and its history. Reading Chambers, I realized that the land is the best teacher and that a connection with place is key in contemporary life. In modern life we are often disconnected from where we are and what came before us. My objective with the project was to create a space that aided in the connection with place and thus create feelings of belonging in the viewer which would transform in care for the land and its people. I chose the Ilaló Mountain to do this project because I’ve lived here my whole life. I have a special connection with land and my culture through my experience in this mountain. It is the place I felt belonging for the first time. And every time I missed home when I was away, I wanted to be with my family or my friends here. In Ilaló. Templo de Reflejo is a space where to connect with the Ilaló mountain, with its ancestral culture and the sacred. At first, I searched for form through the investigation of nature. The flora and fauna of the Ilaló were a huge inspiration to create the space. After conducting many different small models of how the space might look like, I ended up choosing to replicate the curvatures of Ilaló. That way the viewer, when they enter, they are entering the mountain. They are entering the land. The idea of reflection was a great part of the work as well. This is why the space is called Templo de Reflejo. Reflejo translates to reflection. I want the viewer to be reflected in the space, metaphorically and physically. I believe that through reflection we heal. This is why I started my idea of the internal space with a water mirror in the bottom. With a water mirror on the bottom, people needed somewhere to step and navigate the space. This is where the chakana started coming to life as the floor of Templo de Reflejo. The chakana, as I explained throughout the year, is a millenary symbol form the native cultures form the Andes. The word Chakana is a quechua work that can be interpreted as “bridge towards the upper”. The symbol shows the union between the lower world and upper world, the Earthly and the spiritual. The circular centre represents the inner duality of the internal universe, the truth, the sacred. At this point, after I had the idea of the outer architecture and the floor, I started my conversations with the Tola Chica Comuna. The community is native to the Ilaló Mountain and they are very important collaborators in my process. I had five interviews with different people form Tola Chica, including the president of the comuna. We discussed how they connected with the land and sacred symbolism for the culture. This is how we came up with the lamps. There are four different designs for the lamps that illuminate the space. We have the chakana, and three native animals. The condor, the Colibri and the prenadilla. I created the lamps from balsa wood and paper. Similar materials I used for my first models for the space. Templo de Reflejo is a space where to connect with the land, the sacred and ancestral culture. It is a space where people could visit and enhance their connection with place. I want the viewer, through reflection, to experience belonging. And I want this feeling of belonging to inspire care for the land, its history and its people. ”