With an academic background in Social and Cultural Anthropology from Bolivia — including a postgraduate diploma in ethnographic research — I began illustrating during my studies and later trained in graphic design through short courses and professional work experience. Since relocating to Berlin in 2017, I’ve collaborated with a range of academic institutions and social scientists, deepening my exploration of how drawing, research, and design can inform and enrich one another. Visualizing anthropological research has become one of my passions — not only as a creative pursuit, but also as a necessary task in today’s global context of misinformation and fragmented communication.
Berlin Career College der Universität der Künste, Berlin
Universidad Católica Boliviana
Universidad Católica Boliviana
The Pictoplasma Academy, Berlin
Atenea, Instituto Tecnico Superior, La Paz-Bolivia
Atelier painter and sculptor Windsor Vargas Moreno, La Paz - Bolivia
Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science e. V., Göttingen - Germany
Berlin - Germany
Max Planck Institut zur Erforschung multireligiöser und multiethnischer Gesellschaften
Freie Universität Berlin - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie
Stadtbibliothek Tempelhof/Schöneberg, Mauerpark Institut e.V.
Mauerpark Institut e.V., Stadtbibliothek Tempelhof/Schöneberg, Freie Universität Berlin
Diplomatic Choir of the Federal Foreign Office, Berlin
Maxim Gorki Theater, Berlin
Editorial Santillana (Publisher), La Paz-Bolivia
Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, Institute for Literary Research (ILL), La Paz – Bolivia.
Mundo Rokooko - Facebook:MundoRokooko
Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, La Paz-Bolivia
Imagen Global - La Paz, Bolivia
Pico Verde idiomas, La Paz - Bolivia
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie
AGENET - The EASA´s Age and Generations Network
Stadtbibliothek Tempelhof/Schöneberg, Mauerpark Institut e.V.
Workshop der AG Medical Anthropology, Freie Universität Berlin
Aquabit Gallery, Berlin
Urban Spree Art Space, Berlin
Universidad Católica Boliviana, Cochabamba
Symbol in rituality in the healing process of soul diseases in La Paz, Bolivia
In my thesis I researched a healing technique through rituality and use of symbols developed by the inhabitants in the surroundings of La Paz-Bolivia. Ritual and medical specialists in this region have an understanding of the human being in a holistic and complementary manner. The human, the non-visible beings (spirits) and their ecosystem are perceived as one entity where the balance has to be preserved through reciprocal relations. The violations of normative including this reciprocal norm will conduct very often to a state of sickness or weakness.
Medical and Ritual Specialists are the people in charge of maintaining the balance between the different spheres of the universe. They read the coca leaves, the cards, or the drawings made by their patients to discover the causes of the unbalance. When this is discovered, then a healing technique has to be applied. This techniques are varied but among all of them the koa is the one in which this research is focused on. The koa consists in an offering of a mesa (a preparation of a dish full of symbols and, among others, a death llama fetus) to the spirits at a sacred place.
From the deep case study of one of these specialists, Don Gonzalo Ávila, and the analysis and study of many other specialists and related practices, this research examines the use of symbols as a technique of healing through the koa, the reading of coca, cards and drawings, and the use of talismans and miniatures.