\u201cWe all love the sea, and this love is at the heart of its defense.\u201d \u2014Cecilia Vicu\u00f1a<\/p>\n
Minga for the Sea is a major new commission by the internationally acclaimed Chilean artist, poet, and activist Cecilia Vicu\u00f1a, developed specifically for Kunstnernes Hus. It is the artist\u2019s first major presentation in Scandinavia and the Nordic region.<\/p>\n
The exhibition brings together voices from Indigenous territories from the Global\u00a0South and North, where communities stand at the forefront of the defense of marine and coastal environments against destructive resource extraction and pollution. Through these situated perspectives, the project foregrounds not only local struggles but also the deep\u2014often obscured\u2014relations between distant geographies shaped by similar landscapes, as well as intertwined histories of colonization and extractive economies.<\/p>\n
At the core of the exhibition are two large horizontal quipus, one in each skylit hall at Kunstnernes Hus, constructed from locally sourced raw wool. In the Andes, native wool has been traditionally used to symbolize water as the union and interdependence of all ecosystems. The quipu\u00a0(\u201cknot\u201d in Quechua) is an advanced pre-Columbian system of communication in which knowledge was encoded through knots tied along cords\u2014a system deliberately targeted and largely destroyed by European colonizers, as quipus also recorded land rights and forms of governance. <\/p>\n
By invoking this disrupted tradition, Vicu\u00f1a reanimates the quipu as both an ancestral technology and a living, evolving form\u2014one that also evokes planetary systems and the interdependence of all the Earth\u2019s elements. Here, it is reimagined as a collective, transnational medium that connects struggles across geographies in a shared defense of the sea, the origin of all life.<\/p>\n
Each quipu corresponds to a specific territory: one to the Southern Hemisphere\/Chile, the other to the Northern Hemisphere\/S\u00e1pmi. Embedded are \u201cletters\u201d contributed by Indigenous and environmental defenders\u2014poems, drawings, crafted objects, found material, video, and more\u2014forming a polyphonic archive of cultural resistance. In the quipu dedicated to the South, components were made by members of an alliance of Indigenous women working to protect coastal territories (Red de Mujeres Originarias por la Defensa del Mar) in Chile. For the quipu dedicated to S\u00e1pmi, Vicu\u00f1a has invited activists opposing the dumping of copper mining waste in Riehpovuotna\/Repparfjord\u2014an ecologically vital fjord for wild salmon\u2014to contribute their voices.<\/p>\n
The two installations unfold differently in space, each evoking wave forms and sea foam. In one hall, the southern quipu is suspended from the ceiling; in the other, the northern quipu extends horizontally through the room, winding like a river or serpent\u2014an expression of the profound interdependence between land, water, and life within S\u00e1mi cosmology. These spatial articulations reflect distinct relationships to landscape while revealing resonances between them: ocean currents, migratory routes, and ecological cycles that exceed national borders.<\/p>\n
Though geographically distant, these regions share similar fjord landscapes and climatic conditions. They are also intimately entangled through global systems of extraction. Norwegian farmed salmon, for instance, are fed pellets partly composed of small fish caught off the Chilean coast, while Norwegian salmon companies have long operated in Chile. Materials, capital, and environmental consequences thus circulate between hemispheres, linking northern fjords with southern coastlines. The exhibition addresses landscapes as interconnected and subject to destruction\u00a0through extraction, highlighting how Indigenous communities articulate alternative cosmologies grounded in reciprocity, stewardship, and relationality\u2014frameworks in which humans are but one part of larger ecosystems.<\/p>\n
The title\u2019s Minga derives from Quechua, meaning collective labor undertaken for the common good. This principle underpins the exhibition\u2019s methodology: a gathering of voices, gestures, and materials shaped through collaboration and solidarity across territories.<\/p>\n
A key initial point of departure for the project is a Chilean law commonly referred to as the \u201cLey Lafkenche,\u201d a landmark protection of Indigenous marine rights that is currently under threat. Across the exhibition, Indigenous cosmologies from south to north emerge not as discrete worldviews but as interconnected ways of knowing that challenge current paradigms and affirm the living bonds between sea, land, and community\u2014reminding us that the Earth\u2019s elements are not limitless, but finite and vulnerable to irreversible loss.<\/p>\n
About the artist With\u00a0Minga for the Sea, Vicu\u00f1a invites us to attend lovingly, to listen, and to learn\u2014from the sea, from one another, and from the ancestral knowledges that persist against erasure.<\/p>\n Summer 2026 at Kunstnernes Hus Credits and support<\/strong> The exhibition is kindly supported by the Savings Bank Foundation DNB, the Nordic Culture Fund and Hillesv\u00e5g Ullvarefabrikk. Kunstnernes Hus and Cecilia Vicu\u00f1a also extend gratitude to Jannik Abel for finding and lending materials to the exhibition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe all love the sea, and this love is at the heart of its defense.\u201d \u2014Cecilia Vicu\u00f1a Minga…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[4021,4020,4022,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-940863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116525975985464798","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/strong>Cecilia Vicu\u00f1a (b. 1948, Chile) has, over more than five decades, developed a practice that moves fluidly between poetry, visual art, film, and activism. Living in exile since the 1970s, she has consistently addressed the intersections of ecological destruction, cultural erasure, and civil rights. A pioneer of what she termed Arte Precario\u2014ephemeral works created from fragile and found materials\u2014Vicu\u00f1a has exhibited internationally, including major solo presentations at the Guggenheim Museum and in Tate Modern\u2019s Turbine Hall. Her retrospective So\u00f1ar el agua was recently on view at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago de Chile, the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, and the Pinacoteca, S\u00e3o Paulo. She was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2022 and Chile\u2019s National Prize for Visual Arts in 2023. In 2024, she was awarded the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles\u2019 inaugural Art and Environment Prize.<\/p>\n
<\/strong>In parallel to Vicu\u00f1a\u2019s exhibition, there will be a presentation by artist Amber Ablett entitled\u00a0The Fallow Year<\/a>\u00a0in the Room for Rest at Kunstnernes Hus. The summer program will also feature the\u00a0MFA graduation show<\/a>\u00a0of the Art Academy of Oslo\u2019s National Academy of the Arts.<\/p>\n
Minga for the Sea\u00a0is curated by Sarah Lookofsky, Director of Kunstnernes Hus. The exhibition is a collaboration with Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, initiated and produced by Kunstnernes Hus. Following its presentation at Kunstnernes Hus,\u00a0Minga for the Sea\u00a0will travel to the North Norwegian Art Museum\u2019s Bod\u00f8 branch in 2027.<\/p>\n