Río

Rio is a young indigenous man of the Huitoto people in the Colombian Amazon. He has long, straight, black hair that contrasts against his traditional white cotton clothes, and wears the boldest of his own necklaces, sometimes two or three at once. He speaks fluent Spanish, Portuguese and his native language of the Huitoto.

The source and inspiration of all Rio's work is the Amazon rainforest, where his community collect the seeds he uses in his necklaces and earrings, and spins the fibre from the chambira palm with which he makes his unique designs. Chambira fibre is one of the strongest known natural fibres in the world. Once a month his family sends a box of these raw materials to his home in Medellin, where Rio lives and works with his wife, Natalia.