Contornos, 2014, registers the variety of fences and barriers found in Cerro de Pasco. The video images examine these boundaries: some seem to be temporary and vulnerable, others impenetrable; they are visibly boundaries between mining operations and public space. The audio is a conversation with Alcibiades Cristobál, from the Huayllay National Sanctuary, a forest of stones on the outskirts of Cerro de Pasco which contrasts the images. Cristobál describes the region’s geological formations while alluding to a cultural past that is disappearing as the land itself and its layers of history are being removed by mining. The video was shown at the 20th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc Videobrasil, in 2017.

Yacimientos [Deposits], 2013, was filmed in Peru, in Cerro de Pasco and its surroundings. The video shows the decay of a city that is consumed by the expansion of a copper mine. We see the contrast between the beauty of the natural environment, with rock formations and adobe ruins, and the physical consequences of extractive operations that slowly consume everything around them, causing irreversible damage to the environment. The work was shown during her solo show in the first part of the 34th Bienal de São Paulo in 2020.

Heliomorphism was created through a process Garrido-Lecca developed using silicon from solar panels. The objects are modelled on archaeological vessels found at the Temple of the Sun in Pachacamac, on the central coast of Peru.

Heliomorphism evokes the use of such vessels in rites of veneration of the sun, cycles of creation and destruction, and the archeological and symbolic significance of material transformations.

Here rather than nature being subjugated to technology, pre-industrial processes are combined with contemporary materials that resignify the relationship with nature.

O complexo imaginário peruano, caracterizado pelo choque entre a milenar cultura andina e as violências, idiossincrasias e contradições introduzidas e alimentadas pelos processos de colonização, constitui com frequência o ponto de partida do trabalho de Ximena Garrido-Lecca (1980, Lima, Peru). A variedade de técnicas e recursos utilizados pela artista, que incluem vídeos, instalações e esculturas, de certa forma reflete a impossibilidade de traduzir essa complexidade, de pasteurizar as fricções da realidade latino-americana numa obra pacificada ou linear. Nos últimos anos, Garrido-Lecca produziu também uma série de instalações caracterizadas pelo uso de processos de construção ou crescimento que podem ser acompanhados pelo público, resgatando técnicas e materiais empregados no artesanato, na arte e na arquitetura ao longo da história peruana.

Um de seus trabalhos mais emblemáticos, Insurgencias botánicas: Phaseolus Lunatus [Insurgências botânicas: Phaseolus Lunatus] (2017) é uma instalação com estrutura hidropônica em que são plantadas mudas de favas da espécie Phaseolus lunatus, numa reativação simbólica do suposto sistema de comunicação da cultura Moche, uma civilização peruana pré-incaica que desenvolveu complexos sistemas hidráulicos de irrigação e que, segundo teorias, valia-se das manchas presentes nessas favas como signos para uma escrita ideogramática. Através de obras como essa, Garrido-Lecca, ao abordar processos ou momentos específicos da história peruana dos últimos quinhentos anos, pinta um retrato único e poético das grandes transformações, das mudanças geográficas e sociais, das migrações internas e dos êxodos internacionais, assim como da perpetuação da dependência econômica dos países latino-americanos em relação a seus antigos colonizadores.

No âmbito específico da 34ª Bienal, Insurgencias botânicas adquiriu um significado ainda mais particular. A instalação foi mostrada pela primeira vez em fevereiro de 2020, na individual da artista que marcou a abertura da 34ª Bienal, e passou a simbolizar, com sua ênfase no processo ininterrupto de transformação de tudo que é vivo (de uma planta a uma cultura), a estratégia curatorial de conceber a mostra como processo e não como algo cristalizado ou fixo. Em novembro do mesmo ano, ela integrou a coletiva Vento, segunda etapa de construção pública da Bienal e momento de afirmação coletiva do desejo de resistir e seguir acreditando na arte e na cultura frente ao desespero trazido pela pandemia. Sua última apresentação será em setembro de 2021, sintetizando uma das estratégias curatoriais centrais da Bienal, baseada na convicção que mostrar as mesmas obras mais de uma vez, em contextos e momentos distintos, é enfatizar que nada permanece idêntico: nem uma obra de arte, nem quem olha para ela, nem o mundo ao redor.

http://34.bienal.org.br/artistas/7300

O complexo imaginário peruano, caracterizado pelo choque entre a milenar cultura andina e as violências, idiossincrasias e contradições introduzidas e alimentadas pelos processos de colonização, constitui com frequência o ponto de partida do trabalho de Ximena Garrido-Lecca (1980, Lima, Peru). A variedade de técnicas e recursos utilizados pela artista, que incluem vídeos, instalações e esculturas, de certa forma reflete a impossibilidade de traduzir essa complexidade, de pasteurizar as fricções da realidade latino-americana numa obra pacificada ou linear. Nos últimos anos, Garrido-Lecca produziu também uma série de instalações caracterizadas pelo uso de processos de construção ou crescimento que podem ser acompanhados pelo público, resgatando técnicas e materiais empregados no artesanato, na arte e na arquitetura ao longo da história peruana.

Um de seus trabalhos mais emblemáticos, Insurgencias botánicas: Phaseolus Lunatus [Insurgências botânicas: Phaseolus Lunatus] (2017) é uma instalação com estrutura hidropônica em que são plantadas mudas de favas da espécie Phaseolus lunatus, numa reativação simbólica do suposto sistema de comunicação da cultura Moche, uma civilização peruana pré-incaica que desenvolveu complexos sistemas hidráulicos de irrigação e que, segundo teorias, valia-se das manchas presentes nessas favas como signos para uma escrita ideogramática. Através de obras como essa, Garrido-Lecca, ao abordar processos ou momentos específicos da história peruana dos últimos quinhentos anos, pinta um retrato único e poético das grandes transformações, das mudanças geográficas e sociais, das migrações internas e dos êxodos internacionais, assim como da perpetuação da dependência econômica dos países latino-americanos em relação a seus antigos colonizadores.

No âmbito específico da 34ª Bienal, Insurgencias botânicas adquiriu um significado ainda mais particular. A instalação foi mostrada pela primeira vez em fevereiro de 2020, na individual da artista que marcou a abertura da 34ª Bienal, e passou a simbolizar, com sua ênfase no processo ininterrupto de transformação de tudo que é vivo (de uma planta a uma cultura), a estratégia curatorial de conceber a mostra como processo e não como algo cristalizado ou fixo. Em novembro do mesmo ano, ela integrou a coletiva Vento, segunda etapa de construção pública da Bienal e momento de afirmação coletiva do desejo de resistir e seguir acreditando na arte e na cultura frente ao desespero trazido pela pandemia. Sua última apresentação será em setembro de 2021, sintetizando uma das estratégias curatoriais centrais da Bienal, baseada na convicção que mostrar as mesmas obras mais de uma vez, em contextos e momentos distintos, é enfatizar que nada permanece idêntico: nem uma obra de arte, nem quem olha para ela, nem o mundo ao redor.

http://34.bienal.org.br/artistas/7300

O complexo imaginário peruano, caracterizado pelo choque entre a milenar cultura andina e as violências, idiossincrasias e contradições introduzidas e alimentadas pelos processos de colonização, constitui com frequência o ponto de partida do trabalho de Ximena Garrido-Lecca (1980, Lima, Peru). A variedade de técnicas e recursos utilizados pela artista, que incluem vídeos, instalações e esculturas, de certa forma reflete a impossibilidade de traduzir essa complexidade, de pasteurizar as fricções da realidade latino-americana numa obra pacificada ou linear. Nos últimos anos, Garrido-Lecca produziu também uma série de instalações caracterizadas pelo uso de processos de construção ou crescimento que podem ser acompanhados pelo público, resgatando técnicas e materiais empregados no artesanato, na arte e na arquitetura ao longo da história peruana.

Um de seus trabalhos mais emblemáticos, Insurgencias botánicas: Phaseolus Lunatus [Insurgências botânicas: Phaseolus Lunatus] (2017) é uma instalação com estrutura hidropônica em que são plantadas mudas de favas da espécie Phaseolus lunatus, numa reativação simbólica do suposto sistema de comunicação da cultura Moche, uma civilização peruana pré-incaica que desenvolveu complexos sistemas hidráulicos de irrigação e que, segundo teorias, valia-se das manchas presentes nessas favas como signos para uma escrita ideogramática. Através de obras como essa, Garrido-Lecca, ao abordar processos ou momentos específicos da história peruana dos últimos quinhentos anos, pinta um retrato único e poético das grandes transformações, das mudanças geográficas e sociais, das migrações internas e dos êxodos internacionais, assim como da perpetuação da dependência econômica dos países latino-americanos em relação a seus antigos colonizadores.

No âmbito específico da 34ª Bienal, Insurgencias botânicas adquiriu um significado ainda mais particular. A instalação foi mostrada pela primeira vez em fevereiro de 2020, na individual da artista que marcou a abertura da 34ª Bienal, e passou a simbolizar, com sua ênfase no processo ininterrupto de transformação de tudo que é vivo (de uma planta a uma cultura), a estratégia curatorial de conceber a mostra como processo e não como algo cristalizado ou fixo. Em novembro do mesmo ano, ela integrou a coletiva Vento, segunda etapa de construção pública da Bienal e momento de afirmação coletiva do desejo de resistir e seguir acreditando na arte e na cultura frente ao desespero trazido pela pandemia. Sua última apresentação será em setembro de 2021, sintetizando uma das estratégias curatoriais centrais da Bienal, baseada na convicção que mostrar as mesmas obras mais de uma vez, em contextos e momentos distintos, é enfatizar que nada permanece idêntico: nem uma obra de arte, nem quem olha para ela, nem o mundo ao redor.

http://34.bienal.org.br/artistas/7300

Botanical Readings: Erythroxylum coca was a project commissioned by Proyecto AMIL in Lima, which transformed the exhibition rooms of the institution into a large botanical laboratory for the cultivation of the most emblematic, and at the same time controversial, plant of Peruvian history: coca.
The exhibition questions the discourses built around this millenary and native plant -both those that reduce it to an exclusive product of drug trafficking, and those that represent it as a sacred and unappealable heritage- to reconsider it as a multidimensional and dynamic actor of our history.
That is, as an agent capable of articulating transversal reflections on the relationship between tradition and modernity, nature and science, vernacular and Western medicine, as well as between local policies of cultivation and consumption and the control regimes of the international community.
Around 200 specimens of the coca plant grew in a hydroponic system designed by the artist, with galvanized steel ducts and artificial lighting, causing a tension between the scientific framework suggested by these elements and the natural evolution of the plants within Proyecto AMIL.
Throughout the exhibition, the public was able to observe the industrialized process of coca cultivation, from germination to harvesting of the leaves. However, once this procedure was completed, a series of ‘non-scientific’ practices, related to the ritual use of the plant, were activated challenging the way in which Western knowledge is constructed. Taking up the divinatory tradition of pre-Hispanic curanderismo –which neither the colonial nor the republican experience managed to eradicate– a group of researchers from the Institute of Oriental Metaphysical Sciences – ICMO, offered coca leaf readings to the public in a private space.
Afterwards, a group of students from the National Agrarian University of La Molina – UNALM, recorded the readings as botanical herbarium. Although the anonymity of the participants was preserved, the “reason for consultation” were registered, so that it finally serves as the criterion for classification and ordering of the herbaria in a botanical cabinet.
Through the mobilization of the traditional and political meanings of the coca leaf in the public arena, Botanical Readings: Erythroxylum Coca acknowledges the historical and social role of the coca plant, as well as its healing, spiritual and economic powers. The result is a new hybrid system of significance, a cross between Peruvian vernacular culture and modern science, which is both futuristic and atavistic; and from which it is possible to apprehend the heterogeneity and the syncretism that characterizes societies which are in the cultural and political peripheries of modernity

Botanical Readings: Erythroxylum coca was a project commissioned by Proyecto AMIL in Lima, which transformed the exhibition rooms of the institution into a large botanical laboratory for the cultivation of the most emblematic, and at the same time controversial, plant of Peruvian history: coca.
The exhibition questions the discourses built around this millenary and native plant -both those that reduce it to an exclusive product of drug trafficking, and those that represent it as a sacred and unappealable heritage- to reconsider it as a multidimensional and dynamic actor of our history.
That is, as an agent capable of articulating transversal reflections on the relationship between tradition and modernity, nature and science, vernacular and Western medicine, as well as between local policies of cultivation and consumption and the control regimes of the international community.
Around 200 specimens of the coca plant grew in a hydroponic system designed by the artist, with galvanized steel ducts and artificial lighting, causing a tension between the scientific framework suggested by these elements and the natural evolution of the plants within Proyecto AMIL.
Throughout the exhibition, the public was able to observe the industrialized process of coca cultivation, from germination to harvesting of the leaves. However, once this procedure was completed, a series of ‘non-scientific’ practices, related to the ritual use of the plant, were activated challenging the way in which Western knowledge is constructed. Taking up the divinatory tradition of pre-Hispanic curanderismo –which neither the colonial nor the republican experience managed to eradicate– a group of researchers from the Institute of Oriental Metaphysical Sciences – ICMO, offered coca leaf readings to the public in a private space.
Afterwards, a group of students from the National Agrarian University of La Molina – UNALM, recorded the readings as botanical herbarium. Although the anonymity of the participants was preserved, the “reason for consultation” were registered, so that it finally serves as the criterion for classification and ordering of the herbaria in a botanical cabinet.
Through the mobilization of the traditional and political meanings of the coca leaf in the public arena, Botanical Readings: Erythroxylum Coca acknowledges the historical and social role of the coca plant, as well as its healing, spiritual and economic powers. The result is a new hybrid system of significance, a cross between Peruvian vernacular culture and modern science, which is both futuristic and atavistic; and from which it is possible to apprehend the heterogeneity and the syncretism that characterizes societies which are in the cultural and political peripheries of modernity.

Botanical Readings: Erythroxylum coca was a project commissioned by Proyecto AMIL in Lima, which transformed the exhibition rooms of the institution into a large botanical laboratory for the cultivation of the most emblematic, and at the same time controversial, plant of Peruvian history: coca.
The exhibition questions the discourses built around this millenary and native plant -both those that reduce it to an exclusive product of drug trafficking, and those that represent it as a sacred and unappealable heritage- to reconsider it as a multidimensional and dynamic actor of our history.
That is, as an agent capable of articulating transversal reflections on the relationship between tradition and modernity, nature and science, vernacular and Western medicine, as well as between local policies of cultivation and consumption and the control regimes of the international community.
Around 200 specimens of the coca plant grew in a hydroponic system designed by the artist, with galvanized steel ducts and artificial lighting, causing a tension between the scientific framework suggested by these elements and the natural evolution of the plants within Proyecto AMIL.
Throughout the exhibition, the public was able to observe the industrialized process of coca cultivation, from germination to harvesting of the leaves. However, once this procedure was completed, a series of ‘non-scientific’ practices, related to the ritual use of the plant, were activated challenging the way in which Western knowledge is constructed. Taking up the divinatory tradition of pre-Hispanic curanderismo –which neither the colonial nor the republican experience managed to eradicate– a group of researchers from the Institute of Oriental Metaphysical Sciences – ICMO, offered coca leaf readings to the public in a private space.
Afterwards, a group of students from the National Agrarian University of La Molina – UNALM, recorded the readings as botanical herbarium. Although the anonymity of the participants was preserved, the “reason for consultation” were registered, so that it finally serves as the criterion for classification and ordering of the herbaria in a botanical cabinet.
Through the mobilization of the traditional and political meanings of the coca leaf in the public arena, Botanical Readings: Erythroxylum Coca acknowledges the historical and social role of the coca plant, as well as its healing, spiritual and economic powers. The result is a new hybrid system of significance, a cross between Peruvian vernacular culture and modern science, which is both futuristic and atavistic; and from which it is possible to apprehend the heterogeneity and the syncretism that characterizes societies which are in the cultural and political peripheries of modernity.

Walls of Progress is a project that took place between 2008 and 2012, beginning as na investigation of visual imagery related to advertisements found painted on adobe brick walls in the highlands of Peru. Among the outcomes of this project is a series of sixteen maquettes based on existing walls documented during different travels to the region of Cuzco, specially the Sacred Valley. Throughout Peru, adobe walls are frequently sites for murals used for propaganda and advertising alike.
Some of them display political slogans and party logos, in which local and national parties promise progress and development of the region during election campaigns. Others promote and sell consumer products, using conspicuous fonts and colours. Unlike billboards and other forms of advertising, they are hand-painted, making each unique. These murals are renewed and updated every season depending on the changing political landscape of the country and the introduction of new products and services.
The process of making adobe bricks involves a huge amount of physical labour, mixing earth and straw with bare hands and feet, shaping them with wooden moulds and leaving them to dry in the sun for weeks. Using natural materials and processes ties in with indigenous ideologies, which assert the up-most respect and religious veneration for the earth as a life-giving force.
The walls blend with the landscape while providing shelter against the forces of nature itself. Strategies of advertising, on the other hand, imply consumerists’ persuasion through the creation of images and symbols that link our desires and personal values to specific products and aligned political views. While seemingly oppositional in their approach they can be seen to play on the same desires for attaining security, comfort and shelter. Drawing parallels between ancient methods of building and modern tactics of advertising act as a marker of how these rural areas are gradually becoming part of a globalised world.
In reality, the walls portray a sterile promise of ‘development’ and a ‘better quality of living’ in a country that has suffered the detrimental consequences of colonialism and imperialism through corruption and exploitation of natural resources under the ever-present shadow of Westernisation. Through the transformation of these walls into architectural models, a suggestion exists that eventhough they are being captured in the process of becoming a ruin, they reflect a developing emergent order, uncertain because of the devastating reality, but with a strong potential of blossoming from the not yet extinct connection between the man and the land.

Walls of Progress is a project that took place between 2008 and 2012, beginning as na investigation of visual imagery related to advertisements found painted on adobe brick walls in the highlands of Peru. Among the outcomes of this project is a series of sixteen maquettes based on existing walls documented during different travels to the region of Cuzco, specially the Sacred Valley. Throughout Peru, adobe walls are frequently sites for murals used for propaganda and advertising alike.
Some of them display political slogans and party logos, in which local and national parties promise progress and development of the region during election campaigns. Others promote and sell consumer products, using conspicuous fonts and colours. Unlike billboards and other forms of advertising, they are hand-painted, making each unique. These murals are renewed and updated every season depending on the changing political landscape of the country and the introduction of new products and services.
The process of making adobe bricks involves a huge amount of physical labour, mixing earth and straw with bare hands and feet, shaping them with wooden moulds and leaving them to dry in the sun for weeks. Using natural materials and processes ties in with indigenous ideologies, which assert the up-most respect and religious veneration for the earth as a life-giving force.
The walls blend with the landscape while providing shelter against the forces of nature itself. Strategies of advertising, on the other hand, imply consumerists’ persuasion through the creation of images and symbols that link our desires and personal values to specific products and aligned political views. While seemingly oppositional in their approach they can be seen to play on the same desires for attaining security, comfort and shelter. Drawing parallels between ancient methods of building and modern tactics of advertising act as a marker of how these rural areas are gradually becoming part of a globalised world.
In reality, the walls portray a sterile promise of ‘development’ and a ‘better quality of living’ in a country that has suffered the detrimental consequences of colonialism and imperialism through corruption and exploitation of natural resources under the ever-present shadow of Westernisation. Through the transformation of these walls into architectural models, a suggestion exists that eventhough they are being captured in the process of becoming a ruin, they reflect a developing emergent order, uncertain because of the devastating reality, but with a strong potential of blossoming from the not yet extinct connection between the man and the land.

Walls of Progress is a project that took place between 2008 and 2012, beginning as na investigation of visual imagery related to advertisements found painted on adobe brick walls in the highlands of Peru. Among the outcomes of this project is a series of sixteen maquettes based on existing walls documented during different travels to the region of Cuzco, specially the Sacred Valley. Throughout Peru, adobe walls are frequently sites for murals used for propaganda and advertising alike.
Some of them display political slogans and party logos, in which local and national parties promise progress and development of the region during election campaigns. Others promote and sell consumer products, using conspicuous fonts and colours. Unlike billboards and other forms of advertising, they are hand-painted, making each unique. These murals are renewed and updated every season depending on the changing political landscape of the country and the introduction of new products and services.
The process of making adobe bricks involves a huge amount of physical labour, mixing earth and straw with bare hands and feet, shaping them with wooden moulds and leaving them to dry in the sun for weeks. Using natural materials and processes ties in with indigenous ideologies, which assert the up-most respect and religious veneration for the earth as a life-giving force.
The walls blend with the landscape while providing shelter against the forces of nature itself. Strategies of advertising, on the other hand, imply consumerists’ persuasion through the creation of images and symbols that link our desires and personal values to specific products and aligned political views. While seemingly oppositional in their approach they can be seen to play on the same desires for attaining security, comfort and shelter. Drawing parallels between ancient methods of building and modern tactics of advertising act as a marker of how these rural areas are gradually becoming part of a globalised world.
In reality, the walls portray a sterile promise of ‘development’ and a ‘better quality of living’ in a country that has suffered the detrimental consequences of colonialism and imperialism through corruption and exploitation of natural resources under the ever-present shadow of Westernisation. Through the transformation of these walls into architectural models, a suggestion exists that eventhough they are being captured in the process of becoming a ruin, they reflect a developing emergent order, uncertain because of the devastating reality, but with a strong potential of blossoming from the not yet extinct connection between the man and the land.

The Followers takes as inspiration a burial ground located in Cuzco, Peru. In this place, as in many deprived areas of Central and South America, the tradition persists of placing the dead in raised vertical concrete structures called nichos. The nichos often resemble something akin to a hotel of still lives, all stacked up one on top of the other. They are each fronted by a space full of photos, flowers and idiosyncratic offerings carefully arranged by the deceased’s family and loved ones. The offerings, left in the belief that they will accompany the departed into the realm of the dead, result in colourful and often wildly obscure compositions.
The faithful reproductions of these structures presented in the gallery become still life homages (to still life homages) to non-stationary lives. The resulting aesthetic is reminiscent of the Vanitas tradition of still life painting. The influence of the Baroque style, as well as pre-Colonial visual traditions of the Peruvian indigenous culture are also apparent, as is the aesthetic of the hybrid iconography that sprung from the amalgamation of Catholic and indigenous religion. By re-contextualising the nichos in a conceptual art framework there is an emphasis on the historicity behind these (conversely, often) joyful tombs. Like the nichos themselves the work is both a lament and a celebration of the value of human life and the rights of the individual in contemporary Peruvian society that hints towards the recent history of terrorism and violence.