BIOGRAPHY

Vicky Arango and the Mangroves: Threads of Memory, Art, and Place There are landscapes you don’t just see— you feelthem. They stay with you like a song you never forget.
For María Victoria Arango, known to everyone as Vicky, that place was Punta Cocalito, on Colombia’s Pacific coast. There, in the vastness of Bahía Solano, between
the humid rainforest and the whisper of the sea, her deepest bond with nature was born. A connection that, decades later, would transform into art— and
into a name she reimagined from a deeply personal place: Manglares. As a child and later a teenager, Vicky would travel with her family each year to that remote corner of the
world, where only two houses stood: her family’s and that of Don Juan, a wise local who knew the secrets of the rivers, the tides, and the mangroves. It was a place
outside of time, where life moved to the rhythm of the water. Each time the tide crept up the creek, Vicky would go find Don Juan. He would lend her a canoe and a
paddle, and that marked the start of her ritual: drifting in silence through the green tunnels of the mangroves. There were no maps, no routes, no clocks.
Only her, the water, and the life pulsing all around. Birds dancing between the branches, fish flashing like sparks, roots intertwined like protective arms.
“It was something magical,” she recalls. “A place where life begins. ”
That deep memory— that intact sense of wonder— became the seed of her most personal work: Manglares. A textile universe that not only evokes
this ecosystem, but reinterprets it through the language of art. Vicky took the quiet strength of the mangroves and translated it into her own visual language— a fusion
of nature and thread, of nests and knots, of memory and creation. A tribute to the tangled, fertile, and resilient life that thrives in these ecosystems.
Inspired by the organic forms of mangroves and their ability to embrace life, Vicky began to weave from the most ancient gesture of all: intertwining.
Each piece arises from a loving observation of the vines that sprout between mud and water. That’s where the necklaces come from. That’s where the
knots that resemble nests come from. That’s where art becomes a bridge between the intimate and the universal— the memory of a place, and the need to protect it.
Because mangroves— those amphibious forests that watched her grow— are not just beautiful; theyare essential. They capture up to five times more carbon than terrestrial forests. They protect coastlines from storms and hurricanes. They filter water, support artisanal fisheries, and shelterhundreds of species. Quietly, they are among our greatest allies in the face of climate change. To care for them is to care for life itself. And in every knot by Vicky Arango, there is a way to do so: with beauty, with memory, with love.

Echoes of the Mangroves
Inspired by the resilience and natural
architecture of mangroves, this collection
weaves stories of rootedness, balance,
and intertwined life. Each piece—crafted
in fique and a variety of threads of
different colors and textures—evokes the
sinuous forms of roots that cling to the
mud and sustain entire ecosystems.
Its material and chromatic combinations
pay tribute to nature’s wisdom: to the
harmonious entanglement of what
protects, filters, and shelters. These are
textile sculptures that embrace the
memory of the land and invite us to care
for what still resists.

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