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KAJÍ VR
SACRED COCA
IMMERSIVE DOCUMENTARY
9 MINUTES
2018
DIRECTORS: Diana Rico & Richard Decaillet
PRODUCTION: 4Direcciones Audiovisual / ACAIPI / Deep360 / New Media Fund
KAJÍ means mambe, the traditional and endemic method of consuming coca leaf, practiced exclusively in the Colombian Amazon. The leaf is toasted, ground into a fine powder, then sieved and mixed with yarumo ash, which activates its properties. The balance in the use of this sacred plant is sustained by preparations of bitter cassava, which, along with tobacco and yagé, form a complementary ecosystem that supports the health and well-being of the community.
KAJÍ is the first immersive documentary made in Colombia, created in collaboration with the community of San Miguel, located along the Pira Paraná River in the territory of the self-named Jaguars of Yuruparí (Hei Yai Keti Oka). This piece is the result of over 15 years of relationship between the collective 4Direcciones Audiovisual (Diana Rico and Richard Décaillet) and various communities in the Vaupés department of Colombia.
In 2017, we flew in 2 Cesnas to the remote community of San Miguel with Nicolás Jolliet and worked for two weeks in Benjamín’s maloka, one hour into the forest from the main settlement. Together with the family who inhabits this house of thought and the payé (traditional doctor) Juan Buitrago (Barasano), we explored new ways of capturing the experience of mambeo and life inside the maloka. We used experimental technologies such as the GoPro Fusion prototype, Google Jump, custom low-light rigs, and drones that enabled the recording of unprecedented scenes. It was a collaborative shoot in which coca—Kají—was present as guide and co-creator of the final piece.
A fundamental element of KAJÍ is its sound design, a spatialized polyphonic composition for VR created with Reynel Ortega by 4Direcciones Audiovisual and Miguel Navas, based on traditional chant knowledge. Reynel is a Kumu (senior traditional doctor) and Hee-gu, World Curator and keeper of the Yuruparí dance, one of the highest traditional authorities in the territory of the Jaguars of Yuruparí. A member of the Barasano people, his ancient knowledge holds the secret of communication between humans and nature.
The Origin of the Night is an interdisciplinary collaborative work directed by 4Direcciones (Richard Décaillet and Diana Rico), which is born from an investigation in different sound archive sources of some indigenous nations of Colombia: Andoque, Murui (Huitoto), Tatuyo and Barasano, Wayuu. Kogi and Tubú. The collection of archives found in public and private collections was activated in a sound studio with traditional indigenous authorities from sessions of listening and recording of new pieces and materialized in an immersive sound installation that was mounted for the first time in the main gallery of the Museum of Art of the National University of Colombia, as a central piece of the exhibition The Origin of the Night (September 13, 2016 – April 30, 2017). The commission of the project, in charge of María Belén Sáez de Ibarra, Curator of the Art Museum and Director of the Heritage of the National University of Colombia, is directed and carried out by the group 4Direcciones, Diana Rico and Richard Décaillet and started with the establishment of a team of permanent advisers who supported and guarded the entire work process. They are Reynel Ortega, Payé and Curator of the World of the community of Puerto Ortega in the Pira Paraná River, Vaupés Colombia, Reynaldo Giagrekudo Traditional Murui Authority of the Predumyo Amazonas, Hernado Fisiao Andoque Cantor and Tardic Authority Andoque de Araracuara, Carmen Vicente, Medicine Woman of Ecuador, Stephen Hugh Jones Anthropologist of the UK author of “La Palma and the Pleiades” and Jon Landaburu Basque Linguist based in Colombia. The production team also includes the musician and composer Miguel Navas, with whom he recorded, edited and produced the entire piece in studio for 12 months. The assembly and specialization in the theater was supported by Juan Forero, musician and sound engineer.
The Origin of the night is an allusion to the myth common to some Amazonian nations, built from sound episodes found in archives and recorded in studio using narrative structures typical of mambe circles, where the stories of the origin and their relationship with the present, of ritual dances of transit of seasons and of the work of “Healing of the World” in which the territory is renamed from constant recitatives in a structure of call and response.
The common challenge was to create a sound longhouse, invisible but real Maloca (longhouse), where various indigenous territories and their custodians would meet; The common purpose was to “cure” the space so that those who attend and listen to it can have a transformative experience based on sound. To heal means at the same time and among other things: to clean, to renew, to travel with thought a territory, to remember, to bring to memory a sacred place, to ask permission to the spiritual owners of a place to relate to it and to activate with a song the relationship original with a place. Each sound booth corresponds to specific and specific places within this house represented in each of the booths that support the structure of the Maloca The Payés, Kumus or Traditional Authorities travel luminous and dark worlds at the same time and thus “clean” the time that passed and prepare the way for the one that follows. In the case of The Origin of the Night, the sounds give an account of the dialogue between the jungle and the urban and seek to heal communication between our worlds.
The information about the Sound Installation, images and press can be found in this microsite:
http://noche.4directions.tv/#origen
photos: Richard Décaillet
photos of the exhibition: Renata Bolívar