The Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Art and Cultural Artifact Collection contains material cultural items that support a growing curriculum and innovative programming on the Andes and Amazonia connected to the Quechua Language Program and the Andean and Amazonian Studies Minor at OSU. Its mission is to work with educators and students to create an accessible learning space for indigenous knowledges in the Caribbean, Andes, and Amazon within The Ohio State University.

Many of these materials were acquired by the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) in Autumn of 2015 through a series of donations and purchases supported by Title VI National Resource Center funds. The collection, which is housed in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese (Hagerty 255), is part of a developing “Integrated Learning Environment for the Study of Andean and Amazonian Languages and Cultures” that features activity-based and experiential pedagogies compatible with non-Western traditions and engages prevailing forms of indigenous knowledge, power, resistance, and self-determination.

The collection is managed and maintained by a team of student curators. Elaine Louden, one of the student curators for the Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Art and Cultural Artifact Collection and recent Spanish and Public Health graduate (2020), developed the website, working in consultation with Arts & Sciences Tech.

About the Collection:

The collection includes artifacts from the Andes and Amazonia including “Slice of Life” Tigua Paintings, unique Canelos Quichua Ceramics, etched story gourds, woven tapestries and shigras (net bags), musical instruments, festival masks and ritual items, hunting implements, children’s toys, food ways implements. These items are paired with related literature, music and film CDs and DVDs. Artifacts purchased from Sacha Runa Foundation and donated by Norman Whitten, Curator of the Spurlock Museum, have similar pieces on exhibit at the Spurlock Museum at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

For more information: https://u.osu.edu/aaac/