Ñuka Shuti Man - My name is

Ñuka Shuti Man is a project that narrates the memory of the daughters of Carmelina Ushigua, a woman from the Sapara culture, who had to migrate from the jungle to Puyo City in Ecuador, due to a forced marriage to offer a better future to their children. From her displacement, the need to reconstitute a community similar to the one she had in the jungle arises, but this time on the outskirts of the city, recreating her childhood space.

This collective project made with Tawna received the E·CO/23] grant by Vist Projetcs.

This visual work reveals the story of a family’s experience that honors the mother's dream of recreating a jungle inside a city. It is the memory of a female lineage that combines Sapara knowledge and new ways of inhabiting and coexisting with Nature and the spiritual world. The project relates the importance of family teachings, which leaves us with the sensitive legacy and wisdom of Carmelina, who has not stopped transmitting her teachings from the jungle to her children. Through memories such as getting rid of bad dreams with water, healing with plants, dying your hair with wituk, and the mutual care between sisters, they make us remember and go through the memory the body carries, the community’s dream of a displaced mother who misses her land. 

Each image brings close attention to the hands and the hair of the sisters as a symbol of care and memory.