In Venice, Latin American artists highlight historically silenced voices

In a global context where the world’s leading museums increasingly seek to decolonise their programming and collections, contemporary art embraces historically silenced and absent voices, such as the indigenous narratives of Latin American communities — which have been given new platforms. A series of outstanding Latin American artists are emerging with force; from their Indigenous roots, they combine the ancestral with the contemporary, offering a fresh and powerful perspective in their works.

A deep connection with nature is a common point among these artists. Through their works, they recover and revalue ancestral practices related to the natural environment, using them as a form of cultural resistance. From the use of organic materials to the representation of sacred landscapes and native fauna, natural elements dialogue with contemporary techniques to create compelling visual narratives. 

Creation with their own community is also fundamental in the work of many of these artists.  This collaborative approach breaks with the individualistic notion of the artist associated with the canonisation of Eurocentric art. The refocusing, preservation and dissemination of roots and traditions not only becomes a trigger for the artwork itself but also creates a means by which marginalised voices can finally be heard and celebrated.

STIR features five contemporary Latin American artists whose practices combine the encounter of two worlds, offering a perspective as novel as it is powerful.

Violeta Quispe Yupari

Violeta Quispe Yupari, originally from Lima, Peru, is an artist and activist linked to the Andean traditions of the Quechua culture of the Peruvian region of Ayacucho. Combining tradition and modernity, she is inspired by Tablas de Sarhua, ancient paintings of genealogical, mythical and religious content created by the Sarhua community on long wooden planks, which are made and given as a gift on the occasion of the construction of a new house. Quispe comes from a family of Sarhuinos artisans and is inspired by her rich cultural heritage. She uses ancestral techniques that she reinterprets to express a critical feminist stance, emphasising the empowerment of women and providing a message against gender violence.

In her works on wood, she fuses acrylics with natural earth pigments, uses pelican feathers to make fine outlines and even incorporates her own menstrual fluids as a kind of pigment.

She has also taken a typical element of Peruvian culture, the ekekos — Andean, ceramic, male figures — representing abundance and prosperity, and transformed them into non-binary gendered Ekeke Sarhuinx in pursuit of LGBTQIAP+ rights. Quispe has exhibited her work at ARCOmadrid, Museum of Art from São Paulo (MASP) and is currently exhibiting two mixed polychrome, natural pigment on wood pieces titled APUS SUYOS: Wamaq Queer Pacha and El matrimonio de la Chola at the Venice Biennale. 

Manuel Chavajay

Manuel Chavajay is a Tz’utujil Mayan artist from the community of San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala, who has forged an artistic practice deeply rooted in his indigenous cosmovision, where nature is sacred.

His works reflect the Mayan ideology and a spiritual connection with nature, while proposing a sharp critique of contemporary dynamics that threaten the environment. He uses recycled materials from his surroundings to raise awareness on our environmental impact. His paintings may contain burnt oil from marine engines, or plastic waste collected from Lake Atitlán.

Alongside his exhibited works, Chavajay instigates projects that he carries out with his community, always prioritising the ancestral knowledge that history has excluded, aware that in the Mayan vocabulary, there are no words that refer to the damage wrought by human actions on nature. His works have been exhibited at the 35th Biennial of São Paulo, Brazil, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Art Dubai and the Venice Biennale 2024, among others.

La Chola Poblete

La Chola Poblete (Guaymallén, Argentina, 1989) is a rising figure in contemporary art, known for her transdisciplinary practice that includes performance, video art, painting, photography and objects. Her work, rooted in a queer imaginary, fuses South American ancestral knowledge with religious iconography and pop elements, such as rock band logos or elements of mass culture mixed with mythological symbols from the Andes or references to the Incas.

Poblete’s monumental watercolours reflect her fluid identity and explore themes of cultural and social resistance. The series Vírgenes Chola stands out for its reinterpretation of the syncretism between the Virgin and the ‘Pachamama’ (Mother Earth to the Andean communities), depicting them with indigenous and pop attributes. 

Poblete defies cultural standards and celebrates diversity, as reflected in a handwritten quote on one of her watercolours: “Feminist, brown, transvestite, non-binary, poor and proud”, among other Argentine slang words. She has exhibited at the PalaisPopulaire in Berlin and Kunsthalle Lissabon in Lisbon. She was Deutsche Bank’s “Artist of the Year” for 2023 and was awarded a special mention for her series of watercolours at the Venice Biennale 2024.

Elyla

Elyla (Chontales, 1989) is a performance artist and activist from Nicaragua, recognised for their focus on resisting colonial and western ideologies through their work that alludes to mestizaje (a term for the mixing of different ethnic groups), queer and indigenous ancestry. They work in video performance, installations, performance photography, theatre and community artivism. 

Elyla takes popular traditions from their country and reinterprets them irreverently, adding novel queer and LGBT perspectives, as they did in the video performance Torita-encuetada (2023), where drag art was integrated into a popular ceremony called “toro encuetado”, which is performed in public space and usually includes fireworks.

Their most recent exhibition, The Rebels Were Waltzing on Air at Giampaolo Abbondio Gallery, Italy, addressed issues of identity, tradition and the deep spiritual meaning of indigenous rituals, within an anti-colonial and queer framework. Elyla’s work has been exhibited at the Havana Biennial, Cuba. They are part of the cohort of the Prince Claus Fund’s Moving Narratives Mentorship Award 2024 and are currently exhibiting at the Venice Biennale.

Joseca Mokahesi Yanomami

Joseca Mokahesi Yanomami, born in 1971 in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, Brazil, is a prominent artist who focuses on translating Yanomami cosmology into visual narratives. The son of a great shaman, Joseca began drawing at an early age in the Amazon rainforest, capturing the ancestral stories and spirits (“xapiri”) of his people. His artistic practice, influenced by his interaction with non-Indigenous people, evolved to include pencils, pens, markers and paper, adapting to the Western context without losing the Yanomami cultural essence.

Joseca’s drawings feature shamanic myths and chants, as well as moments in the daily life of his people, accompanied by descriptive captions in the Yanomami language. Drawn on blank sheets of paper in colourful, clear and descriptive images, rather like illustrations, Joseca reveals mystical landscapes and spiritual figures such as the spirit of the bee or the chestnut tree, which are of great relevance to the community. His commitment to education led him to be the founder of the first Yanomami school in the 1990s, promoting literacy in his native language. In 2003, he participated in his first exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris, France and from there would come multiple exhibitions internationally, including his current participation in the Venice Biennale.

The mandate of the 60th Venice Biennale, which aims to highlight under-represented artists and art histories, aligns with the STIR philosophy of challenging the status quo and presenting powerful perspectives. Explore our series on the Biennale, STIRring ‘Everywhere’ in Venice, which brings you a curated selection of the burgeoning creative activity in the historic city of Venice, in a range of textual and audiovisual formats.