Sapi (Roots, Raíces)
Adina Farinango, Sapi (Roots, Raíces) 2020
Commissioned for the ACC/CCA’s Knowledge Within Us digital publication.
Adina Farinango is a Kichwa artist based in Lenape-Hoking. Her work is centered on showing the resilience and strength of matriarchs in her community. Using art and digital illustrations as a form of resistance she hopes to showcase the importance of representation in digital spaces when Indigenous peoples reclaim our own narrative. Commissioned for the ACC/CCA’s Knowledge Within Us publication
Artist Statement
As a Kichwa Otavalo woman, my work celebrates and centers Indigenous identity through digital illustration, photography, embroidery, and animation. My art is an act of reclamation, grounding itself in the personal, ancestral, and collective memory that lives within my body. It opens a dialogue with those beyond the physical realm: ancestors from the past, present, and future, who shape and guide my expression.
Exploring what it means to be part of a diasporic community, I reflect on the idea of home and how it resides within us, carried through the generations. My work is deeply rooted in love, standing on the shoulders of my mother, my community, and all my ancestors. Through a matriarchal lens, I aim to convey my lived experiences as a form of resistance and joy—a celebration of Kichwa Futurisms.
Despite colonialism’s violent impact, our art has not only survived but has been a vital source of joy, resilience, and vision for the future. My practice seeks to honor this resilience, inviting viewers to join in celebrating the legacy and enduring strength of Indigenous art and identity.
Adina Farinango is a Kichwa-Otavalo artist who uses art as an act of resistance, healing, and self-expression. Her art practice serves as a means to navigate and strengthen her own identity as an Indigenous woman within the Kichwa diaspora. Influenced heavily by the resilience and strength of matriarchs in her community—past, present, and future—she seeks to Indigenize spaces, centering the reclamation of space through a matriarchal lens. She is currently based in Lenapehoking (New York City).
