Irma Poma Canchumani

Irma Poma Canchumani (Junín Province, August 12, 1969) is a traditional Peruvian artist of mate burilado and an environmental defender. She received the "Meritorious Personality of Culture" award from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and the "Recognition of Excellence for Handicrafts in the Andean Region" award from UNESCO.

Biography Irma Luz Poma Canchumani is the daughter of Agustín Poma and Angélica Canchumani, promoters of the collective memory of the Mantaro Valley in Cochas Grande, a town located a few kilometers from Huancayo that has maintained the tradition of carved art since the beginning of the 20th century. Her parents, Calabash carvers and engravers with different tendencies and techniques, recreated sequences of spiraling visual narratives, which are read as the piece is slowly rotated. The themes addressed focused on customs such as the (Andean natural medicine cleansing procedure), marriage, house construction, textile practices, sowing, births, or illnesses. As part of her collaboration with this organization, in 2012, Poma exhibited her works in the exhibition Conversations with the Earth: Indigenous Voices on Climate Change at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Her work is distributed in collections in the United States, England, Switzerland, Sweden, India, Japan, and South Africa. with a gourd depicting the sowing and harvesting of wheat. She also won a Smithsonian Institution contest, with a tribute to the pachamama. Carved matte that summarizes in 38 scenes the first 54 chapters of Don Quixote de la Mancha, winner of the contest organized by the Ministry of Education and the Museum of the Nation of Peru for the quadricentennial of the emblematic work in 2005.