Installation
Variable dimensions
Cusco, Perú 2024

A refuge built in the Qorikancha Museum

I build an urban shelter, a protective space within the museum, which becomes a space-territory and also a home.

I walk through Cusco, wandering the streets aimlessly, with gloves and bags, my gaze mostly directed towards the ground. I collect what the city’s inhabitants discard, forget, or abandon. The smells overwhelm me.

Three eucalyptus branches support the structure, along with several branches of Queñoa, Chilca, and Aguaymanto, all local plants with various healing properties. I weave in a worn plastic tape that reads “NACIONAL DEL PERÚ,” a bottle label that says “ORO,” alongside another one from INCA COLA (*), technological discards, a green bag, commonly used to hold coca leaves, here containing part of a Gloria milk carton (**).
Several orange peels, typical of Cusco’s urban landscape, intertwine and add a particular scent of daily life in the city.

(*) A beverage born in Peru in 1939, now owned by Coca Cola.
(**) In the Cantuna Massacre – the exhumed bodies of the Peruvian students and teacher were packed by the state in Gloria milk cartons to send them to their respective families.