En el principio / In the beginning. Juliana Góngora Rojas, Matías Quintero Sepúlveda, Juven Piranga Valencia, and Yinela Piranga Valencia

The exhibition curated by Anna Burckhardt Pérez and Neville Bryan “En el principio / In the beginning” by Juliana Góngora Rojas, Matías Quintero Sepúlveda, Juven Piranga Valencia and Yinela Piranga Valencia at the Art Instute of Chicago will be open to the public until July 28, 2025. The installation is the first show by the Colombian artist Juliana Góngora in a museum in the United States.

Góngora works mainly with organic materials such as soy, salt, stones and spider threads; highlighting the transformative potential in the materials, as an initiative that involves human beings and nature. For En el principio / In the beginning Góngora invited artist Matías Quintero Sepúlveda and Juven and Yinela Piranga Valencia, leaders of the Ko'revaju indigenous community of the northern Colombian Amazon. In honor of the spiritual dialogues, they created a collective installation that interweaves earth, different pigments, milk, plant fibers and seeds.

At the center of the exhibition are two works, the first, Manto celeste (Celestial Cloth), incorporates a blue pigmented sand used in Ancient Egypt to represent motherhood, water, and the cosmic sky. The second piece that was conceived specifically for the Art Institute's gallery is Piso de tierra (Earth Floor) made with soy and local mud, alluding to everything that sustains life, including the earth and seeds. Also, some of the other objects in the exhibition come from materials originated in the territory.

This show is the result of intense conversations and spiritual work that highlights the importance of simplicity, humility and intentions in our daily actions as well as in the way we relate to each other. In this way, the artists created a collective space where the idea of individual authorship is blurred and the common is conceived as something to be shared with the viewer.