Kusikawsay means “peaceful and happy life” in Quechua, an indigenous language and people in South America. The sculpture is meant to be an indigenous canoe that brings ancient wisdom and symbolism to the present. The canoe navigates the rivers and witnesses the progress of the Colombian territory. The shape and the material have symbolic power. They are fragments of the past that are focused on the future. In mythology of many ancient cultures, the idea of travel after life is common. The ritualization of life implies reconciliation with memory and amends between the community and the community of its territory. The notion of travel, passage, or threshold is presented as a vehicle for the search for wisdom.

The canoe is mounted with a few degrees of inclination to give a sense of displacement, trajectory, projectile, and a rocket taking off. Kusikawsay emerges from the grass without a base or visible concrete. It gives the illusion of emerging from the depths to the sky. Kusikawsay symbolizes the end of an internal conflict that lasted over fifty-years and the peace that continues to be built in Colombia. 

The Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed an agreement to end the conflict and began building a stable and lasting peace on 24 November 2016. 

There are three monuments marking this agreement. One in Cuba where the negotiations took place for over four years, the second in Colombia where the agreement applies standing. The third is at the United Nations Headquarters and signals appreciation to the Organization’s work to secure world peace and security. The statue was also given in gratitude for the strong support the United Nations gave to the Colombian peace process.