Digital masks: reimagining digital media for co-presence with the Kogi

Šnajberková, Jaroslava; Bidarra, José; Tavares, Mirian

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/20530

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Authors

Šnajberková, Jaroslava

Bidarra, José

Tavares, Mirian

Abstract(s)

This paper presents arts-based research on digital media and indigenous communities. It departs from Kogi sacred masks to discuss community life and how digital media can serve as a relational, ethically attuned environment for engaging with indigenous communities in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia. Grounded in visual ethnography, autoethnography, and analogue photography, the project explores how image-making may shift from mere acts of capture to practices of co-presence, inner silence, and respectful withholding. The work draws from the story of two sacred ritual masks repatriated from Berlin to the Kogi in 2023, using them as both material artefacts and conceptual metaphors for opacity, sovereignty, and spiritual integrity. Through digital fragments, ambient sound, underexposed imagery, and poetic interruption, the digital arts project challenges conventional representation and contributes to a decolonial visual methodology rooted in care and attentiveness.

Keywords

Indigenous media Digital ritual Decolonial aesthetics Visual sovereignty Analogue photography Kogi

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/20530

Citation

Šnajberková, J., Bidarra, J., & Tavares, M. (2025). Digital Masks: Reimagining Digital Media for Co-Presence with the Kogi. 12th International Conference on Digital Arts (ARTECH 2025), 26-28 de novembro, Braga, Portugal.