Location

In the ancient Andes, the human body was a primary medium for representing cultural ideals. Through temporary and permanent modifications, the individual body was made to symbolize the larger social body which it helped to constitute.

In this talk, Blenda Femenías will examine the use of jewelry and dress in the ancient Andes as these correlated with changes to the human form through practices like binding and piercing. Beyond the fashioning of any single person, adornment and alteration constituted part of larger strategies of incorporation, binding actor and spectator into a system of cultural understandings.