Esteban Pilonieta - Proposal

This semester I want to try and re-interpret Venezuelan indigenous pre-Columbian artifacts. By using their style and techniques I hope to create something that is my own, maybe by incorporating modern mediums, styles or simply different meanings. I would also like to experiment with how two completely different materials can influence each other, as for example clay and metal, or clay and silk. The basic process I would like to go through in order to make something concise (to me) out of the whole "modern Venezuelan artifacts" would be as follows:

1 - Immerse myself completely in the indigenous style by drawing (as blue prints I guess) their artifacts, designs, weaves, etc.
2 - Try and duplicate them by using alike styles, clay and burning methods.
3 - Interpret and manipulate the figurines my own way until they become something completely different, and ?modern?

The 3 steps are very basic, but as I go through all this I also want to try some other things with the objects (or characters, or whatever they might become eventually). For example, motorizing them.
A couple of things really stick out in the research I've done about their artifacts though, like the religious meaning behind them, how all designs represent the tribe in question, etc etc. So, another thought I had was to create my own religion and depict the "gods" I create with my own modernized style.
There is also the issue of the environment in which the indigenous that created the artifacts I'm looking at lived in, and the one I currently live in. Even when comparing the "Venezuela" (apostrophes since for them the land wasn't really denominated through boundaries in any way) and the one I've seen. Venezuela was, and still is, a very beautiful country, and small as it might be, it has it all (mountains, desserts, beaches, amazon...). The indigenous that lived in the terrains had very "weird" customs to the Western eye, so most of them were killed, but some where respected and left alone, some where just simply inside the lands and never found until modernization and modernity reached them. A Venezuelan person nowadays is quite hard to describe, but basically we are very happy people, who like to live comfortably even in the worst situations, who keep a strong sense of humor no matter what, and party until your body gives out. The judiciary system is pretty messed up (yeah, slang, but its the best way to describe it). It is Kafka's nightmare to be eaxact....

Let's see where this goes. Hopefully, somewhere interesting....

This is a big part of the current "Chavez" Venezuela:

This is where I'm from, Merida: