Vestiges - Generative Project I & II
Integrating Playfulness, Mapping, and Colonial History
History is often framed as something distant, static, and unreachable—but what happens when you can pick it up, shake it, and play with it?
The Betijoque Sonajera, a small ceramic shaker from pre-Columbian Venezuela, was once passed between hands, played in rituals, and likely used in ceremonies. The people who made them were forcibly displaced or killed, and no new Sonajera have been made since the 1500s. But despite this tragic history, these figurines are not solemn. They are joyful—chubby, wide-eyed, with tiny feet and rounded proportions. The same playful aesthetic that made them charming nearly 1000 years ago still makes them feel strangely contemporary today. Humans across time have always found these kinds of forms endearing.
 |
| Vestiges – DigitalElder.ca |
In Vestiges, I recreate the Sonajera as 3D-printed replicas with small beads inside, allowing them to function as shakers, just as the originals once did. But there’s a twist: on the soles of their feet are QR codes leading to Digital Elder, an interactive archive where participants shape the evolving story of these objects. Anyone who finds a Sonajera—whether by accident or intention—is invited to imagine:
Who do you think I am? What is my story?
Take me somewhere new—where should I stay for a while?
Users can submit their responses along with photos of the figurine in its chosen location, placing it somewhere meaningful or unexpected—a park bench, a library shelf, a crevice in a brick wall. On Digital Elder, these locations appear as pins on an evolving digital map, where newer placements glow vividly while older ones fade into the background. The figurines are no longer just artifacts; they exist in motion, continuously shaped by those who choose to engage with them.
Mapping as a Colonial and Decolonial Act
At its core, Vestiges questions the act of mapping itself. Colonial maps imposed rigid borders and erased Indigenous ways of understanding land, turning lived spaces into grids of ownership and extraction. By contrast, this project envisions mapping as ephemeral, interactive, and constantly shifting. The most important markers are not fixed landmarks but fleeting moments of interaction—where someone finds a figurine, holds it, wonders about it, and chooses a place for it to rest.
This is a proof of concept for a future iteration featuring ceramic replicas instead of plastic 3D prints and a fully generative, living map. In that version, the map will resist colonial conventions of cartography: it will not be a neutral survey of land but a collaborative space where memory, movement, and encounter define the landscape. New placements will emerge in bold clarity, while older ones fade, echoing the way history is shaped by attention and forgetting.
Displacement, Place-Making, and the Ethics of Recontextualization
This project does not attempt to restore the Sonajera to its original context—it cannot. I cannot even make this work in Venezuela due to the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Instead, I engage with this cultural memory from within Calgary, a city built on Indigenous lands where displacement and erasure have also taken place. What does it mean for an Indigenous Venezuelan artifact to be relocated here? What does it mean for Venezuelans and non-Venezuelans alike to re-place it in urban spaces shaped by settler colonialism?
Even as I seek to carry forward a tradition that was violently interrupted, I recognize the risk of unintentionally replicating colonial acts. By making these figurines open-ended and participant-driven, I hope to create a space for reflection rather than assertion—a process where meaning is not imposed but negotiated.
In Vestiges, history does not sit behind glass. It moves, it changes, it is misplaced and re-placed. It exists in the hands of those who choose to hold it.
Next Steps:
Including a final pop up or page redirection with historical information about the figurines
Inspiration for a Generative Map: Web-Based Experiences 
Comments
Post a Comment