daniela’s art

New Zealanders who return from living overseas often comment on how insular we are.  The first place where this is noticed is with the media, which tends to set the agenda for conversation and empathy.  During these covidian times we’ve tended to be wrapped up so much in ourselves.

My hunch is that the peoples of Latin America are the ones about which we hear the least.  I don’t remember them ever emerging in our news media.  And yet, according to the official data, they have suffered the most — along with the old ‘Eastern European’ countries.  If you take “deaths per million”, Peru has suffered more than any other country in the world, with a figure of 6000.  New Zealand, by contrast, sits at 13.  Within the evangelical community in Latin America alone, 5000 pastors have died from COVID-19.  When I put that statistic on Facebook, someone fact-checked me — presumably because they, like me, thought the number to be un-believable. 

This seems an appropriate time to search for meaningful ways to bring the peoples and cultures of Latin America into my life and into the life of my home and family.  Having Esteban help me add songs to my Christian Music playlist on Spotify was a beginning.  Then I remembered the artwork of his sister, Daniela, in which she gives an Andean and Bolivian flavour to the liturgical year.

This is a single, summary piece.  Each of Daniela’s eight individual pieces — on Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost and Ordinary Time — can be glimpsed within this one piece.  The art design is known as ‘Pallay’, an indigenous way of weaving with textiles. 

For example, here is Advent…
… and Lent…
… and Easter …
… and Ordinary Time …
Aren’t they beautiful? 
Here is a short video showing them all on display at Regent College, Vancouver, last month.

Also, I found this video of Daniela explaining each of the pieces for an INFEMIT Stott-Bediako conference in 2020.  Jesus’ baptism happens in Lake Titicaca and the Road to Emmaus becomes the Inca Trail!  Watch from the 11.00 minute mark — until 35.30.  It is well worth it.

By the way, I do have Daniela’s permission to write this post.  However I wanted also to highlight the fact that it is possible to buy these pieces.  It is easy to do.  I wrote to Daniela (damestegui@gmail.com) with my order and she attached compressed files by return email.  I paid by credit card — USD35 each time I print one off.  They become a smaller poster size (11 X 7 inches). 
This COVID-19 pandemic has worked to turn my heart towards the peoples of Latin America in a new way, made all the more poignant by the fact that Daniela’s own extended family’s battle with the virus have been, for me, the darkest days (make that two months!) of them all. 
nice chatting
Paul

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About Me

paul06.16

the art of unpacking

After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.

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