This installation consists of a wall drawing and two pieces crafted from paper and found materials. The wall drawing, created directly on-site, incorporates illustrations and text from XIX century European explorations to the Andes, layered with stills and photos taken from Facebook reels, a common way for people to share their acts of resistance during different uprisings in Ecuador, and images from my family’s archive and migratory experience. The goal is to keep weaving these intertwined sources and temporalities into a symbolic grammar that reframes this historical record to speculate about our strategies to continue to exist in different territories, proposing a more relational and sacred interaction with the world, even under a colonial and extractive political reality that is in total opposition to life on earth.

On the floor, two elements anchor the piece: Icarus, made from handmade cud paper, beeswax, and ink; and Aya, a papier-mâché headset designed for activation during the final day of the installation, where I perform a soundscape that intertwines aureal records of different uprisings while I improvise with pinkullo and bombo wearing the headset and guiding participants movement around the space. Together, these elements offer an embodied and conceptual dialogue, inviting viewers to engage with layered narratives that transcend traditional academic and historical frameworks. While the exhibition was on view, the escalating human impact on Earth became starkly evident. The catastrophic scale of this impact disrupted our perceived grasp on reality when an emerging epidemic quickly evolved into the COVID-19 pandemic, abruptly interrupting everyone's relational landscape. The show was still open in March 2020 for no one. The performative aspect of the show, intended to be a closing event, was cancelled. 

This work serves as a reminder of the quiet but persistent resurgence of indigenous and people’s place-based knowledge, a perspective fundamentally at odds with the dominant systems of globalized neoliberal and late capitalist society. It also became a space for self-reflection, prompting me to question my own role and responsibilities as an artist navigating these turbulent times. Through my practice, I sought not only to engage with these pressing realities but also to explore how art can contribute to envisioning alternative futures.