Artecampo Museum

Since pre-Columbian times, different cultures in the Bolivian Lowlands have survived differently in each case. The Ayoreode, the Chiquitanos, the Guarayos and the Guaraní have maintained their language, their identity and their plastic production. Through weaving, ceramics, painting and other techniques, they essentially combine the beautiful and the useful.

Artisan works, being objects of daily use and ceremonial use, are the material supports of the beliefs and symbology of each culture, reflecting at the same time as an individual expression, the codes of an entire people.

Towards 1979, the plastic production of the peoples of the East suffered a double marginalization: on the part of the urban population that ignored the artistic and artisan tradition of their own land; and by the indigenous themselves, affected by the general contempt for their own. Low-cost handicraft rescuers, industrialized goods and the exodus to the cities had seriously affected handicraft production.

In more than 30 years of joint work of CIDAC with the Association of Artisans and Artisans of the Field, a worthy and profitable profession has been reconquered; reviving artistic and craft production and expressing the new realities of the communities. This process has resulted in a great change in the condition of artisan women: it has valued their work, their ancestral knowledge and their individual creativity; enhancing your organization and leadership.

In this way, the native artistic heritage has been revealed to the city, pride has been awakened by indigenous cultural expressions and it has been possible to avoid, until now, its disappearance.