VASIJA / VER / VACIAR

VASIJA / VER / VACIAR was a ceramics workshop focused on the study of pre-Hispanic practices and their possible uses in a contemporary context. It took place in Bogotá in 2024 and ran for three months. It was conceived as a space for learning, experimentation and material reflection.

The workshop was run by Materia Prima, an artists’ collective formed by Paloma Pardo and Sofía Lozano. It proposed an approach to various ways of building a vessel, and to specific techniques such as terra sigillata —an ancient ceramic finish that involves applying refined clays to produce polished, smooth, highly detailed surfaces without the need for glazes. This technique made it possible to explore relationships between surface, record and trace, in dialogue with the pre-Hispanic practices addressed in the workshop.

The process grew out of a residency by the artist Sofía Lozano in Ecuador, where she visited collections and museums in Quito, among them the Weilbauer Museum and the National Museum of Ecuador. There she came into contact with practices of conservation, classification and preservation of archaeological pieces, experiences that fed the conceptual and methodological approach of the workshop.