The exhibition “Quipnayra uñtasis sarnaqapxañani – Walking with the future behind you and the past in front of you’” by Nereida Apaza Mamani will be inaugurated on Tuesday 22 April at 12 noon at the Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Jr. Ucayali 391, Lima). Curated by Manuel Munive.

The artist shares her very peculiar perception of Arequipa, the city where she was born and lives.  Her new individual exhibition proposes a synthetic tour based on notes of the flora, geography and urban landscape as well as a poetic cartography, which she used to identify, in her own words, “demographic growth, urban expansion, the devastation of agricultural areas and water scarcity…”.

Photos: Juan Pablo Murrugarra

Confining her vision of the White City to a single space, she has made use of the installation, either “pictorial” or “textile”, and also of another that represents a shelf with ‘artist’s notebooks’ ready for the visitor to leaf through.  The set also includes some polyptychs such as Cartographies and the video Abrevar.

The mural on paper Herida colonial (Colonial wound), which reproduces one of the ashlar walls with cement mortar that characterise the most modern and peripheral buildings in Arequipa, is striking. It reveals a critique of the city’s landscape watercolour tradition, which seems oblivious to the gradual disappearance of the countryside, which the artist reproduces on cotton cardboard.

With this exhibition Nereida Apaza underlines her experience as a woman from Arequipa and the daughter of migrants from Puno, hence the choice of the Aymara aphorism that gives it its title. The major themes on which her work is based can also be seen: the memory of childhood, the weight of education, the stigma of migration and the hidden violence that underlies a city – and a country – that has not yet rid itself of racism and discrimination.

CONVERSATORY

Immediately after the opening of the exhibition there will be a discussion with the participation of María Eugenia Yllia, Raul Chuquimia and the artist herself. Moderator: Manuel Munive.

María Eugenia Yllia is an art historian, museologist, curator and teacher. She is coordinator of the Masters in Museology and Cultural Management at the Ricardo Palma University and director of the Institute of Museological and Artistic Research at the same university.  She is also a candidate for a PhD in Art History and holds a degree in Art from the UNMSM and a Master’s degree in Museology from the Universidad Ricardo Palma.  She has published the book “Estéticas amazónicas contemporáneas. La obra del pintor bora Víctor Churay Roque” (Contemporary Amazonian Aesthetics. The work of the Bora painter Victor Churay Roque) and various articles in books and magazines.

Raúl Chuquimia has a degree in Plastic Arts from the Escuela Nacional de Arte Carlos Baca Flor. He has held solo art exhibitions “Tiempos de Silencio” (2014), “Renacimiento” (2016), “La fotografía en las artes plásticas” (2020) and ‘El collage en las artes visuales’ (2023).  His work moves between photography, experimental short film, collage and urban intervention.   Part of his work is part of the permanent collection of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de la UNMSM.