Elvira Espejo Ayca | |
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| Born | 1981 (age 40–41) Oruro Department, Bolivia |
| Nationality | Bolivian |
| Occupation | Museum director |
| Known for | Poet, essayist and musician |
Elvira Espejo Ayca (born 1981) is an indigenous Bolivian artist and the director of the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore in La Paz until 2020. In 2020 she was a joint winner of the Goethe Medal for improving cultural exchange.
Ayca was born in the Bolivian Oruro Department in 1981. She was brought up in an indigenous community in the province of Avaroa. She not encouraged to have ambition and she had to break from her Ayllu (village community to learn more) named Qaqachaka, but she always remembered her own culture. [1] She went to high school in Challapata where she was attracted to painting. [2] She went on to higher education in La Paz where she studied at Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes Hernando Siles . [1]
She went on to study languages which are not written down. [1] She speaks the Aymara and the Quechua language. [3] Her first ambition had been to paint but after she heard a Japanese Haiku she started to write poetry. [2]
In 2006 she published awutuq parla and Phaqar kirki-t ́ikha takiy takiy – Canto a las Flores. The latter is a book of poems which won her "best international poet" at the World Festival of Venezuelan Poetry in the following year. [3]
She became the director of the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore in La Paz. She was sacked in June 2020 by the Brazilian provisional government despite international protest. [4]
In 2020 she was awarded the Goethe Medal alongside pro-European English writer Ian McEwan and Zukiswa Wanner. Wanner was the first African woman to win the award. [5] Ayca was chosen because of the cross cultural exchange she encourages between Europe and South America. The German commission who awarded the medal called her a "true bridge builder". [6]
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in western-central South America. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest and Peru to the west. The seat of government and executive capital is La Paz, while the constitutional capital is Sucre. The largest city and principal industrial center is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located on the Llanos Orientales, a mostly flat region in the east of the country.
Oruro or Uru Uru is a city in Bolivia with a population of 264,683, about halfway between La Paz and Sucre in the Altiplano, approximately 3,709 meters (12,169 ft) above sea level.
Deutsche Welle, abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service consists of channels in English, German, Spanish, and Arabic. The work of DW is regulated by the Deutsche Welle Act, meaning that content is intended to be independent of government influence. DW is a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
Tinku, a Bolivian Aymara tradition, began as a form of ritualistic combat. In the Quechua language, it means “meeting-encounter". During this ritual, men and women from different communities will meet and begin the festivities by dancing. The women will then form circles and begin chanting while the men proceed to fight each other; eventually the women will join in the fighting as well. Large tinkus are held in Potosí during the first few weeks of May.
Matilde Casazola Mendoza is a Bolivian poet and songwriter who writes songs rooted in her country's musical traditions.
The Goethe Medal, also known as the Goethe-Medaille, is a yearly prize given by the Goethe-Institut honoring non-Germans "who have performed outstanding service for the German language and for international cultural relations". It is an official decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. The prize used to be given on 22 March, the anniversary of Goethe's death. Since 2009, it has been given on 28 August, the anniversary of Goethe's birth. The first awards were made in 1955. In the intervening years, through 2018, a total of 348 women and men from 65 countries have been so honored. It is not to be confused with Goethe-Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft (1932–1944) and Goetheplakette der Stadt Frankfurt am Main.
Nike Wagner is a German dramaturge, arts administrator and author. She directed the festival Kunstfest Weimar, and has been the director of the Beethovenfest from 2014. The daughter of Wieland Wagner, she is a great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner, and a great-great‑granddaughter of Franz Liszt. She devoted books to the Wagner family and its cultural and political influence.
Verónica Nataniel Macamo Dlhovo is a Mozambican politician who has served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2020. She served as the President of the Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique from 2010 to 2020. Dlhovo is a member of Frelimo.
Marina Núñez del Prado was a celebrated Bolivian sculptor.
Filipe Jacinto Nyusi is a Mozambican politician serving as the fourth President of Mozambique since 2015. He is the current leader of FRELIMO, the party that has governed Mozambique since its independence from Portugal in 1975. Additionally, he has served as the Chairman of the Southern African Development Community since August 2020.
Televisión Boliviana is the first television channel of Bolivia and serves the only means of television communication from the government. The channel was established in August 1969 under the government of Luis Adolfo Siles after years of planning by the government of then-recently deceased René Barrientos. It is a state-owned broadcasting network.
Stanislava Staša Zajović is a transnational feminist and peace activist. She is the co-founder and coordinator of Women in Black in Belgrade, Serbia.
Zukiswa Wanner is a South African journalist, novelist and editor born in Zambia and now based in Kenya. Since 2006, when she published her first book, her novels have been shortlisted for awards including the South African Literary Awards (SALA) and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. In 2015, she won the K Sello Duiker Memorial Literary Award for London Cape Town Joburg (2014). In 2014, Wanner was named on the Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define trends in African literature. In 2020, she was awarded the Goethe Medal alongside Ian McEwan and Elvira Espejo Ayca, making Wanner the first African woman to win the award.
Irena Veisaitė was a Lithuanian theatre scholar, intellectual and human rights activist. She was awarded the Goethe Medal in 2012 for her contribution to cultural exchange between Germany and Lithuania.
Yolanda Bedregal de Cónitzer was a Bolivian poet and novelist, known as Yolanda of Bolivia. She is known for her explorations of human emotions, and especially in her later years, isolation and loneliness.
Lindita Arapi is an Albanian writer and journalist. She is cited as a noteworthy example of a generation of female Albanian writers. Together with her contemporaries, Ervin Hatibi, Agron Tufa, and Rudian Zekthi, Arapi is one of Albania's present-day literary avant-garde writers. She has been living in Germany since the late 1990s, where she has published several volumes of poetry. Her first book of poetry, Am Meer, nachts was the first book of poetry written by a female Albanian poet in German. Her first novel, Vajzat me çelës në qafë (2010), translated into German in 2012, was awarded a Book of the Year prize in Albania.
Narel Y. Paniagua-Zambrana is a scientist specializing in ethnobotany. She investigates the use and protection of traditional knowledge of plants in indigenous communities, particularly in the Bolivian Andes. She is currently an Associated Researcher at the Herbario Nacional de Bolivia, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Mayor de San Andres in Bolivia. Her goal is giving them the knowledge to participate in decision-making on the conservation of their intangible cultural heritage.
Irina Lazarevna S(ch)herbakova is a Russian historian of the modern age, an author and a founding member of Memorial. She was awarded the Carl von Ossietsky Prize for Contemporary History and Politics in 2014, and the Goethe Medal in 2017. She has been studying Russia's modern history since the 1970s. Memorial was identified as one of Russia's "foreign agents" in 2016. In 2022, Memorial has been co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Martha Yujra Apaza is a Bolivian politician and trade unionist who served as minister of cultures and tourism from 2019 to 2020. A prominent trade union leader in El Alto, Yujra was the only indigenous member of the Jeanine Áñez Cabinet and was the final official to head the Ministry of Cultures and Tourism; the institution was abolished during her term. During her tenure, Yujra's office primarily dealt with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cultural sector, devising means of alleviating the economic ramifications of quarantine measures on artisans and entertainers. She subsequently served as a counselor at the Embassy of Bolivia in Quito from July to November 2020. Prior to serving as minister, Yujra gained notoriety for her fierce opposition to the government of Evo Morales. In 2017, she led a breakaway faction of the pro-government El Alto Regional Workers' Center. As its executive secretary, Yujra aligned the union with the Bolivia Says No alliance, running unsuccessfully as a candidate for plurinominal deputy from La Paz in the annulled 2019 general elections.
Romina Guadalupe Pérez Ramos is a Bolivian academic, diplomat, politician, and sociologist who served as ambassador of Bolivia to Iran from 2019 to 2020 and since 2021. A member of the Movement for Socialism, she previously served as a plurinominal member of the Chamber of Deputies from Cochabamba from 2015 to 2019. Pérez graduated as a sociologist from the Higher University of San Simón before completing postgraduate studies in the European Union. She comes from a generation of leftist academics who entered political activity as activists against the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 80s, as well as the neoliberal democratic governments that succeeded them. Her work in the field of women's and ethnic rights led her to join multiple NGOs, including the Center for Legal Studies and Social Research, through which many academics and intellectuals became politically linked with the Movement for Socialism. In 2014, she won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies on the party's electoral list but did not complete her term, being appointed ambassador to Iran in mid-2019.
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