Artistic Activism in Semi Ya (2000) by Cecilia Vicuña: Towards a Decolonization of Knowledge and Nature

Abstract

In this article, I analyze how the artistic activism of the poet and visual artist, Cecilia Vicuña, is constructed in her most well-known project on seeds, Semi ya. In light of its hybrid materiality and ecological vocation, I propose there is an alternative botany developed in this work that promotes the decolonization of nature, and specifically of seeds, through epistemic decolonization and the defense of the plurality of knowledge. Relationships are also established between Vicuna’s work and the community approach of trafkintü, an ancestral Mapuche and rural practice where seeds are traded freely