Click here for discussion with Cecilia Vicuña and Noah Saterstrom   Cecilia Vicuña Río Mapocho On April 12th, 2012, Cecilia Vicuña and the Pichimuchina performed a ritual for the waters of the Mapocho River in Santiago Chile. This mighty river has dried up as a result of global warming and the privatization of water by corporations. The next day it rained and the river swelled for a few hours. The performance took place outside of Galeria Patricia Ready, just before the opening of Aural, a solo exhibition by Cecilia Vicuña. Aural was dedicated to Kauri Paqsa, the Inca child who gave his life to ensure the flow of the Mapocho River, many years ago. The removal of his body from its sacred burial ground at the birthplace of the river is regarded as the cause of the river's death.

Cecilia Vicuña Hilito en el desierto / Thread in the desert A performance by Cecilia Vicuña in the Sonoran desert. This film was produced by the University of Arizona Poetry Center for the 2012 Poetry Off the Page Symposium, in Tucson, Arizona, May 2012.

Cecilia Vicuña performs and exhibits her work widely in Europe, Latin America and the US. She is also a political activist and founding member of Artists for Democracy. Since l980 she lives in New York and Chile. She has been creating “precarious works”, ephemeral installations in nature, cities and museums since l966, as a way of “hearing an ancient silence waiting to be heard.” She lectures and teaches workshops and seminars, for indigenous communities, and universities, such as Naropa University, Denver University, SUNY Purchase and Universidad de Buenos Aires. She recently completed a performance tour of four Latin American countries, along with the American poet Jerome Rothenberg. Her visual work has been exihibited at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Santiago, The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and The Whitecahel Art Gallery in London, and at The Whitney Museum of American Art and MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), in New York, among many others. Both works included here ©Cecilia Vicuña New York, NY 2012.

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