Tucked away on a Belmont Cragin corner, a rich mural helps Chicago’s Kichwa Ecuadorian community honor and remember their homeland.
A member of that community, a group indigenous to Ecuador, painted the mural. Fernando Lechón of New York spent about a month on the sprawling work, which he finished in time for the Kichwa Ecuadorians’ annual Inti Raymi festival to celebrate the solstice.
It partially covers the side of an Ecuadorian restaurant, Avenida del Sabor, at 5805 W. Diversey Ave., on the corner of North Menard Avenue.
“I am very, very happy to paint more murals all over this country and support the Ecuadorian communities,” says Lechón. He counts himself as possibly the only Kichwa Ecuadorian muralist in the United States. His murals can be found all over South America, in New York and, now, Chicago.
“As an artist, it also is an opportunity to grow. The important thing for the artist is to keep this working, to have more opportunities to preserve our rich culture and heritage, and keep celebrating these events,” Lechón says.
Inti Raymi, or Feast of the Sun, is a “sacred festival that honors and gives thanks to the Sun for nurturing the crops and sustaining life,” according to Kichwa Community of Chicago, a nonprofit that keeps these festivities alive each year in a three-day event. It was one of the most important celebrations in the Inca Empire.
Lechón’s mural is an interpretation of Andean culture, both past and present, he says. It shows native corn growing on the Andean mountain Taita Imbabura. Two hummingbirds — regarded as messengers of the divine — seem to flutter and gaze at each other from either side of a woman in traditional dress.
Hands in the sky appear to be weaving a tapestry, which flows down the mural. Those hands, Lechón says, represent their ancestors, who once made the ponchos and tapestries still used today.
The mural shows an Aya Uma mask with two faces — popular at Inti Raymi celebrations — playing a traditional flute. Along with the chakana, an ancient Incan cross, the symbols “show connection to the cosmos and the importance of harmony and balance in life,” Lechón says.
Sandra Tituaña and her husband, William Farinango, are chairs of this year’s festival. They and their daughter, Ashley Farinango, say that through the mural, community members are announcing their connection with their ancestors and history in Ecuador, another continent away. The Kichwa community boasts about 70 families in Chicago.
“We wanted to make the mural part of our annual solstice celebration,” Ashley Farinango said.
“Seeing the representation on a huge display in Chicago is really important to us. The mural helps show that our community is strong. Even though we are thousands of miles away from Ecuador, we are in touch with our culture and we want to preserve that.”