Koyoltzintli’s Clay Instruments Channel Sounds from Distant Pasts
“I feel like I am in constant conversation with the past and we are discussing what we’re going to do with the future,” said Koyoltzintli, surrounded by dozens of flutes, whistles, drums, and other handmade instruments scattered around her studio in upstate New York. She was talking about her connection to the Pacific coast of Ecuador, home to some of the oldest ceramic practices and ceramic instruments in the Americas. But she was adamant about her roots in the present—“as someone who carries a lineage while doing my own thing.” Koyoltzintli started out working primarily in photography, as a photojournalist in Ecuador with a particular interest in the expansion of Amazonian cities and healers in the Andes Mountains. But while she continues to work with the medium—as well as others, including painting, drawing, and sculpture—she had an epiphany around sound in 2020 that continues to resonate. Unable to travel back to Ecuador from the US—where she had moved to attend the School of Visual Arts in 2001—because of the pandemic, she started going to museums …
