Aude & Alexandre
de Beaulieu
— march 2026
About
The collection
Alexandre and Aude de Beaulieu met in Paris before they left to live in Costa Rica. They soon moved to Panama, where they would live for nearly fifteen years with their four children.
Shortly after arriving, they had their first encounter with a nuchu through their close friends. It was love at first sight, the beginning of a collection that extended over a decade and allowed them to bring together more than 1,500 Guna sculptures, and form lasting friendships among the inhabitants of the San Blas Islands.
Nuchus are traditionally charged with a magical power through a process of ritual sanctification. After a certain time, the Guna transfer the magic to another sculpture, removing all power from the first one, which no longer has the same
significance in their eyes and henceforth becomes a wooden statue devoid of all spiritual power. It is these statues that Alexandre seeks out, traveling by dugout canoe from island to island, village to village, to the depths of the Darien forests.
Thanks to a dear Guna friend, and always with the blessings of the chiefs and communities they visit, the collection has come to life due to these wooden sculptures acquired for their formal characteristics.
Beyond their anthropological or mystical significance, these sculptures bring about a profound visual emotion in Alexandre and Aude. This book is the product of the passion that has guided their aesthetic research. It is a book that pays homage to these works of art and their artists in a context in which, in spite of a desire to perpetuate their traditions, Guna culture and the beliefs of their cosmogony are steadily losing ground to the reality of our lifestyles that are fraught with modernity.
About
The collection
Alexandre and Aude de Beaulieu met in Paris before they left to live in Costa Rica. They soon moved to Panama, where they would live for nearly fifteen years with their four children.
Shortly after arriving, they had their first encounter with a nuchu through their close friends. It was love at first sight, the beginning of a collection that extended over a decade and allowed them to bring together more than 1,500 Guna sculptures, and form lasting friendships among the inhabitants of the San Blas Islands.
Nuchus are traditionally charged with a magical power through a process of ritual sanctification. After a certain time, the Guna transfer the magic to another sculpture, removing all power from the first one, which no longer has the same
significance in their eyes and henceforth becomes a wooden statue devoid of all spiritual power. It is these statues that Alexandre seeks out, traveling by dugout canoe from island to island, village to village, to the depths of the Darien forests.
Thanks to a dear Guna friend, and always with the blessings of the chiefs and communities they visit, the collection has come to life due to these wooden sculptures acquired for their formal characteristics.
Beyond their anthropological or mystical significance, these sculptures bring about a profound visual emotion in Alexandre and Aude. This book is the product of the passion that has guided their aesthetic research. It is a book that pays homage to these works of art and their artists in a context in which, in spite of a desire to perpetuate their traditions, Guna culture and the beliefs of their cosmogony are steadily losing ground to the reality of our lifestyles that are fraught with modernity.
About
Nuchus
Beyond his particular woodcarving abilities, the essential attribute of a nuchu carver is his ability to call on the invisible powers living in the trees and to incorporate their essential, silent qualities into the image through the hands of the carver himself. It is a powerful being, both in its actions and in its words.
The nuchu, indeed, is a protector, a messenger, a mediator, a being of words and wood. Its spiritual power is breathed into it through an invocation: the Gunas speak to them in their healing rituals, and at times when their intercession is required as protectors. Some say that once the tree is transformed into a human figure, it gains the ability to interact with special human beings.
Samuel Vásquez
Generic images
[ These generic images are indispensable tools for the protection of a town, a house or a river – places or objects that are a common good, which do not represent any particular person. They also serve to “represent” the common people. ]
Professions
[ In the evolution of cultures, these kinds of typological portraits are often followed by more physiologically accurate ones. ]
Portraits
[ Portraiture is essentially and exclusively human. No portraits are made of God, who is idealized or symbolized. Nor are portraits made of trees or tigers: nature is represented more abstractly. ]
Symbols & totems
[ According to Lezama Lima, a myth is an owned image and an image is a myth beginning its adventure. ]
About
The book
THE AESTHETICS OF HEALING IN SAN BLAS
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[ PDF – 6 Mo ]
