Omar Rivera

This manuscript is an intercultural philosophical analysis of conceptions of space in the European and Andean philosophical traditions, which studies Andean space in relation to the Quechua concept of “Pacha.” It uncovers a lineage of Andean indigenous space-based knowledge and memory expressed aesthetically, from pre-Columbian Inca stone architecture, through colonial paintings and rituals, and continuing in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Andean photography and landscape painting. This lineage manifests a conception of space that is organized according to elemental orders—earth, light, and water in particular—that underlies social forms, and is not human centered. This aesthetic analysis includes a critical dialogue with Martin Heidegger’s and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological conceptions of space and with current work on the aesthetics of liberation from Latin America.