Ñuqaykuqa (2024 / 2025)

 

Day of Indigenous Peoples and Intercultural Dialogue (Peru), National Holiday (Spain), Day of the Race (Argentina, Honduras, Panama), Day of Discovery (Bahamas), Day of the Discovery of America (Chile), Day of Remembrance of Gratitude and Admiration to the Discoverer of the New World, Christopher Columbus (El Salvador), Day of Columbus (USA), Day of the Meeting of Cultures (Costa Rica), Day of Hispanic Heritage (Guatemala), Pan-American Day (Belize), Day of Cultural Diversity (Uruguay), Day of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity of the Nation (Colombia), Day of Cultural Identity and Diversity (Dominican Republic), Day of Interculturality and Plurinationality (Ecuador), Day of the Pluricultural Nation (Mexico), Day of Decolonization (Bolivia), Day of Indigenous, Black and Popular Resistance (Nicaragua), Day of Indigenous Resistance and Decolonization of America (Venezuela).

A performance project that emerged from Fidel Barandiarán's curatorial project "NOW WHAT?!" at the British Cultural Center in Lima, Peru. It was reimagined to be executed in any Andean territory on October 12th of any year, by a contemporary artist of Spanish-American nationality, native Spanish speaker, and with no traceable indigenous ancestry.

The execution will consist of writing/drawing, using hammers and chisels, the rectangle and the Quechua phrase "Chanka" shown above on a brick and/or cement wall, and then dropping the resulting wall fragments to the ground without cleaning them up. The action must be performed without an audience present and without any additional spectacular effects, nor with video recording. It must be performed in the context of a contemporary art exhibition with a marked Western accent.

Ñuqaykuqa manam valinikuchu (nosotros no valemos)

 

The phrase can be interpreted as a declaration of lacking symbolic, economic, political, social or cultural power, both from the perspective of the Quechua voice (indigenous peoples in the context of contemporary art that excludes them), or on the contrary, it can be interpreted as a confession of being aware that contemporary art ignores and denies the cultural and social diversity and identities of our plurinational Hispanic American societies, considering the social body that physically executes the performance.