Shaking Colombia’s Artistic Canon: Indigenous Psychoactive Brews as Aesthetic Practice in Juan Cárdenas’ Los estratos

Abstract: In Juan Cárdenas’ literature, writing is an experiment that tests the limits of social representation and the boundaries of academic disciplines. His 2013 novel Los estratos dismantles Colombia’s stratified society, where Indigenous and Black communities occupy the lowest strata, while capturing mythical and aural elements of both minorities in the contemporary urban and rural spheres. Instead of speaking for the Indigenous and Black subjects, the novel presents minorities through the main character’s intellectual and corporal limitations as he travels to the jungle and drinks yagé. In this article, I argue that in Los estratos the shamanic rituals of preparation and intake of psychoactive brews are an artistic practice, analogous but not identical to experiences within the visual arts. Challenging conventional representations of the Indigenous in art and media, I show how psychoactive brews can be understood as part of contemporary artistic networks in Colombia.