I explore the encounter between the ancestral and the expressions of our time.
I am Ana Davids, a lawyer and textile and mixed-media artist born in Salta, Argentina, in 1989. Working under the name Ana Davids – Umbral, I explore the relationship between memory, territory, and identity through natural fibers, organic materials, and a visual language connected to Andean culture.
My relationship with the Calchaquí Valleys began in childhood, when my mother often took us there. I grew closer to those places again as a teenager, but it was only after living away from Salta for two years that I understood how much they meant to me. When I returned and traveled through the valleys once more, I recognized the landscapes I had missed and felt deeply that I belonged to this territory. That experience of distance and return lies at the heart of my work.
I am interested in the memories that remain present in everyday life: a poncho, a woven textile, a *chullo* hat, and the materials and customs we recognize as part of our surroundings. In them, I find traces of a cultural history that continues to evolve. My work grows out of my experience as a woman from Salta and my interest in Andean heritage, Criollo traditions, and the cultural encounters that have shaped northern Argentina.
I work with thread twisted around rope, wool, jute, chaguar fiber, corn husks, wood, and metals. I choose these materials for their textures and for the connections they allow me to make with the territory. Twisting, joining, and repeating a gesture until an image takes shape is also a way of thinking about memory: something passed on, changed, and given new forms over time.
The faces and forms in my work are contemporary interpretations, not historical reconstructions. Through them, I seek to express belonging and continuity, and to bring attention to a history that remains alive in the details of our culture. My work begins with a personal question: what do we carry from our place of origin when we leave, and what do we recognize of ourselves when we return?