Piya Yat Studio

Unlearning Art School

Native languages have secret codes. Codes to live according to the values that each culture establishes to preserve its life, to acces healing if necessary, to ensure the connection with the divine power that each one of us experiences from within.

It is estimated that during the colonisation of the Americas more than 8 million indigenous people were exterminated, during the initial period alone. The survivors were forced to learn other languages and were tortured in the name of an external force that the looters called god.

Indigenous people ruled their lives under cosmic principles, hence great self-awareness. The invasions succeeded not only in taking over the land they were guarding but subjected them and the generations to come to this kind of amnesia of who we really are.

There are thousands of indigenous descendants around the world who are exposed to educational spaces such as schools, universities, and the monstrous world of the internet, where their indigenous heritage is diminished on a daily basis. Indigenous languages are in danger of extinction at a very high rate, just like elephants. And so is all the wisdom we can access to achieve our total vital potential here and now.

Thus is born Piya Yat Studio, a multifacetic artistic laboratory for protection of native cultures and indigenous heritage and in a larger scale, a space for learning and unlearning. A space designed to host collaborations with artists from different fields. The first target is set on textiles with a great openness to the creation of different types of products as educational tools.

Illustration: Andrés Barthel Agostino