About the website artwork
Message from the AILASA president.
AILASA is proud to include the artwork of Knorke Leaf on our website. Knorke's work is aesthetically beautiful, and simultaneously challenges us to commit to ecological and social justice in our daily lives. Knorke's work champions the wellbeing of people and communities who are too often positioned at the margins of politics and society, especially First Nations Peoples and women. We hope that her artwork resonates with AILASA's own commitment to advance our understanding of social and environmental justice, and of the people and cultures of Iberia and Latin America.
Please listen to the podcast below to hear Knorke discussing her work, and the communities with whom she works. On behalf of AILASA, I am deeply grateful for the permission to use these works. I
Listen to the podcast
KNORKE LEAF
TRANSDISCIPLINARY URBAN GRAPHIC ARTIST
AND ECOFEMINIST FROM BOLIVIA
Knorke Leaf is the first recognized female street artist in her country.
She studied Fine Arts at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA) specializing in engraving in Bolivia and Argentina.
Knorke has won several awards and mentions inside and outside her country, including First Place for Engraving - International Selection Contest "Bice Bugatti Club" - VI Edizione. Milano, Italy. She was invited as a female street artist for the Images Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. She received an Honorable Mention in Engraving "Salón Pedro Domingo Murillo" Bolivia, as winner of the First Urban Intervention Competition - Cultural Center of Spain. Knorke was part of the first exhibition of Bolivian design and illustration in Japan "GRAPHIC DESSERT" Gallery 5610 - Shibuya, Tokyo, and was selected as activist artist for COP2 -Paris, France. She organized the 1st and 2nd exhibition "BOLIVIA URBAN ART", was invited to paint a mural at the University of Montreal (UQAM), and give a workshop of street art and feminism at the 7th Feminist Congress in Montreal, Canada. She held her first individual exhibition of prints at the gallery L'Atelier-Galerie A.Piroir, "YAKU YÓLLOTL Canada. Knorke was invited to give a workshop, an artivism conference, and paint a mural at WITS UNIVERSITY about food sovereignty and climate change, COPAC - Johannesburg, South Africa. She won the first place of the Annual Latin American Contest “Life stories that survive violence and persecution in the countryside in South America”, IPDRS, Bolivia. Knorke was also invited to paint a co-creative mural with ONE DROP about the importance of access to water and sanitation for the Latin American Sanitation Conference LATINOSAN 2022.
Knorke directed and made the first MACRO MURAL of Bolivia, which was selected as FINALIST in the 7th Design Biennial in Spain and also been investigated for the SURBANIN project for Harvard University.
Knorke has been invited to give several talks about female street art importance and activism as bridges of peace and social construction for the Biennial of the Americas Denver USA, Talking Peace conversation series - Shared Studios, Biennial of Graphic Design Bolivia - BICEBÉ among many. Also, she was invited to give an international talk at Doha Debates Ambassador Program – Creative Solutions to pressing community issues to young ambassadors of change at a global level.
Finally, she has painted several murals over the years for saving the jaguar, amazon forest, Indigenous people and the conservation of the biodiversity of Bolivia and South America.
Invitations, interventions, awards, competitions, biennials, festivals and collaborations: Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile, United States, Nicaragua, France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Japan, Canada, Paraguay, South Africa, Australia.
Pájaro Quirquincho - El Alto Bolivia
This mural explores climate and social crisis, and the path to heal and return to mother earth.
Goza de la vida, part of Macro Mural “El Qhathu” Chualluma, La Paz - Bolivia
This mural talks about the importance of taking care of children around the word and sending them messages of happiness and hope. It's always possible to create magic for them and with them.
Kausay
Kausay means ocean of energy. Entering the unlimited void, it's an invitation to the sacred Hanan Pacha.
Libertad
This mural is also part of the Macro Mural of Chualluma. It’s particularly important as it makes visible aymara and quechua women, and talks about a dream of freedom.
Sueña
This mural is the first mural painted in the Macro Mural of Chualluma. It's a message for the city of La Paz and El Alto and also for the woman that live inside this house. It was especially emotional for this woman to have a mural painted with the colours that she likes. She never dreamed of having a mural or any colour painted in her house.
Ispallas Libres - FES Obrajes La Paz
Ispalla in aymara language means 'the soul of the seed'. This spirit protects the seeds and the soil. “We are and we think about what we eat. We eat soil, and if we eat a soil that has poison, a dead soil: we eat death, we eat war.”
Mayibuye - Johannesburg South Africa
Mama Afrika needs to be free of nuclear energy and nuclear mining.
Fluir
Animal power - it's always near us
La Lechera - La Paz Bolivia
La Lechera is a tribute to one of the most passionate anarcosindicalismo social movements in the history of Bolivia. It was led by aymara women, and the women's labor federation FOF and culinary labor union (1927 - 1946)
Knoke leaf & Khespy FES Obrajes La Paz Bolivia
We need to remember that we are all one. We need to protect Mother Nature.
Tantachawi Knorke Leaf & Osek Macromural Chualluma La Paz Bolivia
Tantachawi in aymara language means meeting. This word symbolizes the importance of organizing as a tribe, and of having a place where people can meet and talk with respect. It also means a place where we stand together for the good or the bad.
Textures of the mural “Ch´uwa Uma Ajayu”
Sacred seeds mandala - Multifuncional El Alto Bolivia
We come from the seeds of resistance. These seeds are the gifts of our ancestors.
Tradition without extinction - La Paz Bolivia
Let's stop animal extinction and human egoism. It is possible to create culture without torture and ecocide.
