Gedion Fernandez

Gedion Fernandez

Gedion Fernandez (Quechua) began to learn about creating ceramics as a child from his grandfather and then started perfecting the techniques of the art during high school. He has since become a ceramicist and ceramics instructor. He is known for his life-size musicians, soldiers and other figures that document Peru’s sometimes violent past but also celebrate the social and cultural landscape of his childhood village of Quinua. According to Fernandez, “Chuncho” (next image) represents an Ashaninka tribal member from the Peruvian rainforests. He says that during his childhood, the Ashaninka would come to his village with their animals to sell their handmade necklaces and play their panpipes in front of a church. They no longer come to Quinua, he says, because internal violence in the 1980s drove them away. This figure is his way of remembering these people. Photo by Williams Pavel Fernández Mallcco.