User:Huinka Echeverria/sandbox

Cultural Plasticity : the ability to change cultural identity throughout an individual's life regardless of place of birth or citizenship. Cultural Plasticity occurs when an individual obtains knowledge of his/her ancestry's DNA and chooses which ethnicity represents him/her better according to personal experiences and choices. The term was coined by artist Carolina Echeverria after learning about Neuroplasticity, also known as brain plasticity and neural plasticity, is the ability of the brain to change throughout an individual's life, e.g., brain activity associated with a given function can be transferred to a different location, the proportion of grey matter can change, and synapses may strengthen or weaken over time. Her personal experience led her to research immigrant's visual representation in Canada, inspired on Norval Morrisseau, father of Woodland School of Art and Brigada Ramona Parra, a muralist movement in Chile inspired by indigenous roots. "Echeverria was born in Chile, she followed her Moroccan Jewish lover to Canada where she converted to judaism and dedicated her work to bridging immigrants to First nations to inspire love for the land as a way to support environmentalist movements like Idle No More. After learning of her DNA through 23andMe, she validated her life's choices.  She was 84% basque, 13% Mapuche, 0.5% Berber (Morocco)  and 0.5% Ashkenazi Jew. "