Clara Chacon is an Illustrator Animator born in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Her practice revolves around documenting and reflecting on tangible and intangible experiences, being keen on visual stylistic metaphors to develop meaning. Especially in animation, a hybrid of physical and digital mediums is key to her process in order to adapt in materiality to the nature of each idea. Her practice has an interest in the meaning behind people’s experiences as well as representing her own in order to understand them. Her work often takes the form of documentary animation, animated poetry, poetry comic, and reportage illustration.
Stills of her graduation film “The Jipijapa Weaver”s (Las Tejedoras de Jipijapa in Spanish), can be seen on the top gallery. This documentary animation explores one of the many stories behind Artecampo, the Bolivian artisan association made up of multiple associations of different native and mestizo communities of the Bolivian lowlands. It centers on one of these associations, the Association of Palm Weavers of Ichilo, and reflects on how Artecampo has positively impacted the lives of the women that are part of it, as 95% of the members of Artecampo are women. The film is guided by the memory and voice of Rosario Arauz, one of the jipijapa weavers, that slowly reveals the relationship between the artisans and the association. A relationship that started even before Artecampo was established, with the visit of Ada Sotomayor to the Bolivian town of Buenavista in 1983.
Moments and memory are ephemeral which can turn creativity into an attempt to understand them.