Las Awichas

A phigital experience by Violeta Ayala.

In black and white, a grandmother with her hands crossed, ringed by eight silver robotic animals: spider, condor, gecko, monkey, jaguar, llama, whale and hummingbird.

LAS AWICHAS

In Quechua, pacha means time and place at once. Ñawpa pacha, the time in front, is the past we can see. Qhipa pacha, the time behind, is the future we cannot see yet. Las Awichas live in ñawpa pacha. Awicha means grandmother, and these are mine, returned through post-photography. More than 20,000 years ago, they walked across the land where the Bering Strait is today and became the first people of our continent.

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KOA.xyz and UNITEDNOTIONS.film present Violeta Ayala’s Las Awichas

Las Awichas is eight grandmothers made with AI, each linked to an Andean spirit animal inspired by the Nazca Lines. The grandmothers weave magic into robotic animals, from geckos to jaguars, who answer your hands and your voice.

Post-photography Andean grandmothers carry the Quechua idea that the past lies in front of us.

Las Awichas is Violeta Ayala's first self-coded project.

Where it has lived

2022
El Martadero, Cochabamba
September to December
The world premiere, in a hall of 300 m². AI and post-photography: portraits of Andean grandmothers and their spirit animals.
A raw cement hall becomes one glowing artery: an eight-metre light bar flashes LAS AWICHAS in rainbow Quechua, and below it eight AI portraits of Quechua grandmothers, 1.8 metres tall, line a 30-metre corridor like silent guardians. It lives on as a WebXR exhibition in Spatial.
The exhibition in Spatial
2024
GLOW: Illuminating Innovation, the Strand, King's College London
7 March to 20 April
An original augmented reality commission for GLOW, in the Arcade on the Strand.
A street window of 6 by 3.5 metres becomes an embodied computer: strands of neon tullmas, Andean tassels, drive the sensors, 3D printed animal totems become haptic processors, and AI portraits in Quechua act as living memory cells. Scan the glass and eight robotic spirits burst out in web AR. More than 8,000 people play it on their phones. Indoors, a VR twin lets remote audiences drift through the same world, and it lives on in Spatial.
King's College London GLOW in Spatial
2025
Australian International Documentary Conference, Melbourne
March
Best Interactive Experience.
2025
SURREALITY, HKUST, Guangzhou
26 June to 26 August
Eight robotic spirit animals from the Nazca Lines, in a large multi-user mixed reality. Visitors meet robotic creatures in a dreamlike world, and see how our grandmothers shaped our world as we now shape the future with artificial intelligence.
2026
UNGA81 week, Foreign Policy lounge, New York
24 September
Las Awichas in augmented reality. Postcards are the trigger.