This publication complements the exhibition "Land of Encounters, Skies, and Colors: Art of South America Today and Yesterday," which aims to promote a diverse horizon of the current, tangible and intangible heritage of our indigenous peoples in South America. By presenting texts and images, the book seeks to create an interaction between our present and the past that we also embody, allowing us to perceive the fullness of America.

The proposed journey makes evident the continuity of the pre-Hispanic past in the present. It is surprising that, despite the expansion of prevailing cultural models, indigenous communities continue to use masks, weavings, headdresses, and reaffirm ancestral dances with careful continuity. Undoubtedly, there have been various circumstances that have caused weakening or extinction of certain traditional indigenous forms. However, in contrast, these circumstances have generated a crucial moment for the indigenous peoples. They explore their possible future marked by the continuity and recreation of their identity, as ritual emerges as a vital, regenerative, and constitutive space for community.

Accompanied by texts from renowned authors such as Silvana de Lorenzo, Alfonsina Elías, Alejandra Levalle, Carlos Martínez Sarasola, Claudia Mazzola, and María Mendizábal, the book presents a collection of ethnographic objects and photographs from the Pampas region and the Argentine-Chilean Patagonia, the tropical and subtropical areas of the four countries that make up the Gran Chaco (Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina), and the Andean region of Peru. Through this selection of aesthetically valuable objects, carefully produced in mountain valleys and the lushness of the jungle, readers can engage with various expressions: feather art, weaving, silverwork, glasswork, woodwork, and more. This collection highlights the aesthetic diversity and richness of materials and techniques, while also serving as a talisman capable of summoning a mythical universe, encompassing ritual, incantation, sunset, mate (a traditional South American drink), the armadillo, chaos, the sky, La Telesita (a mythical figure), the rhea, and death. Despite having been relegated to excessive oblivion, its power will untangle the magic.

Teresa Pereda