This image is a detail of a pre-Columbian Andean record-keeping device known as a Khipu. Among the different types of information that devices like this contained were important calendrical events. As such, khipus are material representations of the past and its ongoing relevance for the people who used them.
Geographical representations in anthropology museums reinforce European perspectives of landscape and history. We have chosen images for our website that illustrate the multiple ways that time and space are represented by Latin American communities. Time can be shown as non-linear and multilayered, while land can be depicted as a dynamic space that includes culturally specific visual codes and cosmology.