Textiles in Ayacucho

Peter Biella
Textiles in Ayacucho

Abstract: The fillm moves from alpaca sheering at 5,200 meters in the Andes to a Quechua weaving neighborhood in Ayacucho, Peru. Vignettes of preparing wool, spinning, dying and setting up looms are complemented with a section on textile pattern-making. Although a few words are spoken in Spanish, the audio-design of the film juxtaposes ambient sound and music. No subtitles are provided since the visceral-visual processes of textile preparation are intended to speak for themselves. As such, the work runs counter to word-based vérité, the current preference of ethnographic sound film, and brings the viewer back to a listening eye.

Production Date: 12/01/2006

Distributor:
Peter Biella
80 Norwood Ave.
Kensington, CA 94707

Phone:
510-526-6671

Email:
biella@sfsu.edu

Running Time:
14

Medium:
DVD

Film Purpose: The film is intended to introduce the complex processes required to produce Andean textiles. It intrigues and leaves many processes only partly explained. As such, it is intended to motivate viewers to want to learn more. For students of film, the not-entirely-kosher non-vérité design of the film's audio track, combined with lengthy takes in the vérité cinema style, are intended to expand the lexicon of ethnographic filmmaking.

Film Audience: The film was originally produced as a means by which members of the Ayacucho Textile Cooperative could show their production process to wholesalers at Trade Fair exhibitions in Europe and the US. The fact that the filming was informed by an anthropological expert in Andean textiles makes the film equally valuable to students of anthropology, textiles, ethnographic film and related arts.

Role of the Anthropologist / Collaboration: Mary Strong is a cultural anthropologist who has worked with Andean textile makers for thirty years. She coordinated the production of the film, liaised with Textile Cooperative members to determine which member should demonstrate which part of the production process, and made executive decisions as to which process should ultimately be filmed. She participated in every phase of shooting and editing. Peter Biella is a cultural anthropologist and Director of the Program in Visual Anthropology at San Francisco State University. He has co-directed eleven collaborative ethnographic media productions and shot more than three hundred films. He directed, shot and edited Textiles in Ayacucho.

Filmmaker/anthropologist: Peter Biella, San Francisco State University; anthropologist: Mary Strong, City University of New York

Keywords: Andes, textile production, Ayacucho, Quechua