PROJECT
THE ROUTE OF PEACE
The Route of Peace is a sculptural and architectural project in progress, which constitutes Jiménez Deredia's most important work. It consists of nine spaces created for nine countries in the Americas, starting in Canada, passing through the United States, Mexico, Yucatán, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, ending in Argentina. The artist thus seeks to trace a route through the Americas in nine stages, "nine architectural spaces," authentic ritual sites where the ancient symbols of the pre-Columbian civilizations that inhabited the continent resonate, renewed. For each country, the master creates monumental architectural structures with sculptures inspired by the circular element that different populations and civilizations possess as a cultural memory.
PROJECT
THE ROUTE OF PEACE
The Route of Peace is a sculptural and architectural project in progress, which constitutes Jiménez Deredia's most important work. It comprises nine spaces created for nine countries in the Americas, starting in Canada, passing through the United States, Mexico, Yucatán, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, and ending in Argentina.
The artist thus aims to trace a route through the American territory in nine stages, authentic ritual sites where the ancient symbols of the pre-Columbian civilizations that inhabited the continent resonate, renewed.
For each country, the master creates monumental architectural structures with sculptures inspired by the circular element that different populations and civilizations possess as a cultural memory.
PROJECT
THE ROUTE OF PEACE
The Route of Peace is a sculptural and architectural project in progress, which constitutes Jiménez Deredia's most important work. It consists of nine spaces created for nine countries in the Americas, starting in Canada, passing through the United States, Mexico, Yucatán, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, and Chile, ending in Argentina. The artist thus seeks to trace a route through the Americas in nine stages, "nine architectural spaces," authentic ritual sites where the ancient symbols of the pre-Columbian civilizations that inhabited the continent resonate, renewed. For each country, the master creates monumental architectural structures with sculptures inspired by the circular element that different populations and civilizations possess as a cultural memory.
CANADA
“…And transiently I saw open spaces and starry skies”
Jiménez Deredia
Canada is the first project of The Route of Peace, the beginning of the journey, which reveals architectural and sculptural spaces that indicate a path that proceeds south. In this project, Jiménez Deredia metaphorically evokes the idea of birth, and places a large marble sphere representing the North Star on the ground. The surface of the ground opens from that point and widens like a furrow in the earth, including within it six other spheres that design the constellation of Ursa Minor on the surface.
The totem poles erected by the Native Americans of Canada in their villages were intended to invoke the protection of spirits and their ancestors. This vision of life inspired the master to create four totemic sculptures with the aim of renewing ancient symbolism. In this project, Deredia sculpts the totem poles called "the dawn," which describes the genesis of the rising sun; "the night," the transmutative evolution of the bat; "the flight," which alludes to the eagle, which soars to the highest heavens; and "the awakening," which represents the evolutionary synthesis of the bear, whose lethargy reveals the mystery of dreams.
USA
…And I became aware that the small grain of sand that is our existence is part of a great cosmic project.
Jiménez Deredia
The study of the ancient traditions that governed the spiritual and social history of the Native Americans of North America led Jiménez Deredia to develop the project for the United States, inspired by the ancient circular stone structures placed on the ground known as medicine wheels.
Jiménez Deredia creates a space that describes the passing of time and the fragmentation produced by transmutation. He expresses this through the placement of granite stones in a circular shape, a symbol of unity and cosmic participation. The perpendicular lines that divide the circle into four parts indicate the four cardinal points, the winds, the seasons, and the age of man. In the center, the artist places a sculpture called Cosmic Image, developed vertically and formed by four bronze spheres that enlarge and transform. This sculpture is the living center of the circle, identified by ancient civilizations as the place without time. The artist adds seven marble spheres to the project, whose proportions and dimensions reproduce on Earth the design of the seven main constellations of the Big Dipper.
MEXICO
Life is a journey where day by day we must harmonize all the opposites that inhabit us.
Jiménez Deredia
In his Mexico project, Jiménez Deredia draws inspiration from the Ball Game depicted in the Popol Vuh, a sacred book of the ancient Quiché Maya culture. The master reworks and reinterprets the metaphor of one of the cardinal concepts of Mesoamerican culture: the struggle between opposites that makes existence possible, the cyclical meaning of life, the darkness that alternates with light.
Deredia segregates a space on the land and symbolically creates a Ball Game field, where he places two Genesis figures called "Song to Life," one white and the other black, arranged like opposing players. To create the Genesis figures of "Song to Life," the sculptor is inspired by a Mayan stone artifact called a ceremonial axe, used in ancient times as a marker in the Ball Game. The terrestrial space of the platform, where the project is taking place, is completed by placing ten marble spheres on the lawn as projections of the stars of the Orion constellation, a constellation closely linked to Mesoamerican cosmogenesis.
YUCATAN
We are subject matter
to flow of time:
Jiménez Deredia
The Yucatán sculptural complex is inspired by the Mayan cultural sphere and the elaboration and development of the concept of time. The Mayan calendars, both sacred and civil, not only described the calculation of successive days, but also served to predict divine influences in human life. Deredia creates an architectural platform that synthesizes the two calendars, emphasizing the scientific rigor and spirituality of the concept of the passage of time. The horizontal base of the structure is in the form of a serpent, a recurring symbol in Mayan architecture. The project is completed by the sculpture "Deep Memory," a genesis consisting of four sculptures that describe the transformation of a sphere into a female figure, represented in the position of Chac Mool, the messenger of the rain god.
COSTA RICA
Truths cannot be learned, they are discovered…
Jiménez Deredia
The Costa Rica project is the heart of the Route of Peace. Geographically located at the junction of the Americas, it seems to embrace and facilitate the flow of other projects coming from opposite poles. The sphere completely dominates the entire Costa Rica project, the artist's native country and the land of the stone spheres created by the ancient Boruca Indians, the main inspiration for the Costa Rican sculptor's works and thinking.
In this architectural complex, the artist places two sculptural Genesis figures on a body of water and three spheres at its center.
COLOMBIA
We are stardust in transmutation…
Jiménez Deredia
The Colombian project is inspired by the Muisca culture, for whom nature was a temple or ceremonial space, where outdoor sculptures served as decoration. The artist creates a water circle in which a central base is anchored to the outer edges by four ramps that serve as access gates: the Gate of Time, the Gate of the Sun, the Gate of the Moon, and the Stars. In front of the Gate of Time, Deredia places a Genesis that gradually transforms into a woman, with forms reminiscent of a serpent, symbolizing the idea of rebirth and regeneration.
PERU
All civilizations have used symbols to better understand life.
Jiménez Deredia
The inspiration for the Peruvian project is the Andean cross, a symbol to which the Incas attributed a strong spiritual and philosophical meaning that involves every aspect of life: the idea of time, space, direction, and the destiny of humankind.
The constellation of the Southern Cross is represented by five spheres placed on the architectural platform.
The sun, an element of utmost importance to the Inca civilization, is evoked by the sculptor in the work Genesis of Peru: a sculpture dedicated to the star that rises on the horizon and transforms into a woman resting her arms on a sphere.
CHILI
Life is a breath of consciousness in the midst of the immensity of the Universe.
Jiménez Deredia
In the Chile project, Jiménez Deredia mixes and reproduces different elements of the ancient Mapuche. From an architectural perspective, the project recalls the Cultrun, a leather drum used in ritual ceremonies by women called Machi, who played the role of priestesses and shamans. The artist emphasizes the coincidence of a language that, through the circle and the cross, describes the vision of a circular, repeated time marked by the alternation of seasons, days, and nights.
The master dedicates the Genesis of Chile to the moon, associated with women. The Genesis is composed of four crescent moons with breasts at the bottom that converse with the growing spheres that develop on the floor.
In the central part of the Deredia platform there is an image of the Centaur constellation.
ARGENTINA
I've told a thousand stories, and at times I've perceived existence in all its fullness, trying to capture it through what I know how to do: sculpture. Here the circle closes, I begin my journey again.
Jiménez Deredia
In the central part of the architectural platform, the artist placed four white marble spheres representing the Southern Triangle: one enormous sphere corresponding to the star α, known as the Atria, facing east, while another frontal sphere corresponding to the star Epsilon, facing west. The final work of the Peace Route is an explosion of silent energy that extends toward the four cardinal points.
For a moment, in that place, Deredia grasps time and marks it on the earth, understands its truth and recounts it, then lets the flow of life unfold, listening to the inexorable beat of time.
THE ROUTE OF PEACE
An eco-historical project by Jiménez Deredia
The unexpected encounter between Costa Rican sculptor Jorge Jiménez Deredia and ecohistory—a research method used at the University of Pisa for several decades—is the subject of this article. Ecohistory, that is, the history of "inhabitation," allows us to study the civilization of all people, including civilizations defined as "without history" but which have in fact been forgotten by official history. For this reason, the "Route of Peace" project can be considered ecohistory because it studies and incorporates the ancient cultures of the American continent from a contemporary perspective.