Also known as the Women Weavers of Dreams and Flavours of Peace, the Mampuján Weavers emerged as a result of the violent paramilitary attack on the Mampuján community in the Montes de María region (Bolívar, Colombia) in 2000, leading to their forced displacement. Between 2004 and 2006, around 15 women began quilting as part of a grief-healing workshop led by Juana Alicia Ruíz Hernández and peacebuilding facilitators. Through sewing, they transformed pain into creative expression. In 2015, the inspiring trajectory of the Mampuján Weavers was acknowledged with the National Peace Prize in Colombia in 2015.
With healing and forgiveness came the transformation of the artistic production of this collective of Afro-Colombian women. Without forgetting what had happened, the tapestries began to fill with colour and reflect the cultural diversity of Afro-territories in the Colombian Caribbean, African heritage and the resilience of the Afro-descendant communities that have been subjected to the violence perpetrated by groups outside the law. Since then, the collective has become well-known for their quilted tapestries, which depict scenes of everyday life, collective memory, violence and displacement, as well as resilience and hope.
‘After seeing the success of the community in the process of healing, empowerment, resistance and construction of historical memory, through the creation of tapestries, in 2008, us women started to share our experience with other townships of the Montes de María municipalities, such as Correa, Níspero, Nueva Florida, San Pablo, etc. We wanted to teach other groups of women so they would continue spreading this technique and multiplying its therapeutic benefits’.
—Juana Alícia Ruíz, Mampuján Weavers representative
The acquisition of the artwork From Africa to the Montes de María by the British Museum, made up of three tapestries Africa Diaspora, African Heritage and Diversity in the Territory, is part of SDCELAR’s project ‘Afro-indigenous knowledge and flavors: weaving networks between collections and museums in the Colombian Pacific and Caribbean’. It is the result of a collaboration with the Mampuján Weavers collective (Mujeres Tejiendo Sueños y Sabores de Paz) and their community museum Museo de Arte y Memoria de Mampuján, inaugurated at the end of 2023. The leaders and representatives of the collective hosted SDCELAR curators at the beginning of 2024 and, a year later, they participated in the workshop ‘A Hearth to Hearth’ (‘La cocina que nos une‘), which focused on Afro-Colombian objects in the British Museum’s collection in Cartagena de Indias in 2025.
Museo de Arte y Memoria de Mampuján. Foto: Louise de Mello, 2024.
These works represent a significant contribution to the Latin America and Caribbean collections at the British Museum, being among the first acquisitions to explicitly address the African Diaspora in the continent. This new addition helps to fill longstanding gaps in historical narratives that have often been silenced in museums of the global North, when it comes to the impact of slavery, the Transatlantic slave trade, and the living heritage of Afro-descendants in Latin America. Tapestries such as these produced by the Mampuján Weavers have recently been incorporated into the collections of the National Museum of Colombia, the LUM in Peru and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the United States.
‘Following the forgiveness and healing found through the art of quilting and sewing, yet another transformation would unfold, that of seeing themselves as artists with works spread across several museums in Colombia and the world. Now, their artwork promotes the value of all of the heritage brought by their ancestors who forcibly crossed the Atlantic, filling these lands with knowledge, sounds and flavours’.
—Sandra Mendoza Lafaurie, project’s principal investigator
African Diaspora (2025)
(Scroll over the image to discover all the details from the artwork)
Series: From Africa to the Montes de María (De África a los Montes de María)
Quilting, 95 cm x 70 cm x 0.01 cm
Collective Mujeres Tejiendo Sueños y Sabores de Paz: Juana Alicia Ruíz, Luz Helena Torrez, Ana Ortiz, Janiris Pulido, Laudis Navarro, Marganis Mendoza, Pabla López, Saray Villareal, Jose Alberto Cortez, Rina Blanco, Zulay Schorbogh and Rosa Angela Forero
(ARN830) @The Trustees of the British Museum
Herencia Africana (2025)
Series: From Africa to the Montes de María (De África a los Montes de María)
Quilting, 95 cm x 70 cm x 0.01 cm
Collective Mujeres Tejiendo Sueños y Sabores de Paz: Juana Alicia Ruíz, Luz Helena Torrez, Ana Ortiz, Janiris Pulido, Laudis Navarro, Marganis Mendoza, Pabla López, Saray Villareal, Jose Alberto Cortez, Rina Blanco, Zulay Schorbogh and Rosa Angela Forero
(ARN830) @The Trustees of the British Museum
Diversidad en el territorio (2025)
Series: From Africa to the Montes de María (De África a los Montes de María)
Quilting, 95 cm x 70 cm x 0.01 cm
Collective Mujeres Tejiendo Sueños y Sabores de Paz: Juana Alicia Ruíz, Luz Helena Torrez, Ana Ortiz, Janiris Pulido, Laudis Navarro, Marganis Mendoza, Pabla López, Saray Villareal, Jose Alberto Cortez, Rina Blanco, Zulay Schorbogh and Rosa Angela Forero
(ARN830) @The Trustees of the British Museum
The making process of the tapestries by the Mampuján Weavers
‘We hope that the African legacy in the Colombian Caribbean will serve as memory and illuminate our path through territories that are free of racism and discrimination, allowing us to come together around art and our diverse mestizo melting pot.‘
Publications related to women’s and maternal health with Wixárika communities by the author of this exhibition
Gamlin, Jennie B. (2013)
Shame as a barrier to health seeking among indigenous Huichol migrant labourers: An interpretive approach of the “violence continuum” and “authoritative knowledge”
Social Science and Medicine 97 75-81
Gamlin, Jennie B. (2023)
Wixárika Practices of Medical Syncretism: An Ontological Proposal for Health in the Anthropocene
Medical Anthropology Theory 10 (2) 1-26
Gamlin, Jennie B. (2020)
“You see, we women, we can’t talk, we can’t have an opinion…”. The coloniality of gender and childbirth practices in Indigenous Wixárika families
Social Science and Medicine 252, 112912
Jennie Gamlin and David Osrin (2020)
Preventable infant deaths, lone births and lack of registration in Mexican indigenous communities: health care services and the afterlife of colonialism
Ethnicity and Health 25 (7)
Jennie Gamlin and Seth Holmes (2018)
Preventable perinatal deaths in indigenous Wixárika communities: an ethnographic study of pregnancy, childbirth and structural violence BMC
Pregnancy and Childbirth 18 (Article number 243) 2018
Gamlin, Jennie B. and Sarah J Hawkes (2015)
Pregnancy and birth in an Indigenous Huichol community: from structural violence to structural policy responses
Culture, health and sexuality 17 (1)
