Interested in establishing networks of community and spiritual exchange, Góngora collaborates with artisans, farmers, and Indigenous communities in works that emphasize the importance of ordinary materials and daily actions, as well as the ties that intimately bind human beings with nature.

La palabra dulce (The Sweet Word), 2020-25
Juliana Góngora Rojas, Juven Piranga Valencia, Yinela Piranga Valencia, and Taller Masipai
Photo by Kike Barona
For her first exhibition at a major institution in the United States, Góngora has invited fellow artist Matías Quintero Sepúlveda and Juven and Yinela Piranga Valencia, leaders of the Ko’revaju Indigenous community of the Northern Colombian Amazon, to create an installation that honors the ongoing dialogue and spiritual collaboration that they have collectively sustained over several years. Weaving together earth, its pigments, milk, plant fibers, and seeds, the artists and community leaders give form to their shared vision of interconnectedness, collectivity, and creation.

Azul egipcio (Egyptian Blue), 2020
Matías Quintero Sepúlveda
Courtesy of the artist

Tejido de tierra (Soil weaving) (detail), 2023-25
Juliana Góngora Rojas
Courtesy of the artist
At the heart of the exhibition are two works that together represent a complete universe, heavens and earth, womb and seed: the textile Manto celeste (Celestial Cloth), whose sand-based blue pigmentation represents motherhood, water, and the cosmic sky, and the burnished soil installation Piso de tierra (Earth Floor).

Cuencos de leche (Milk Vessels), 2021
Juliana Góngora Rojas
Courtesy of the artist

Lengüitas sagradas (Sacred Little Tongues) (detail), 2022
Juliana Góngora Rojas
Courtesy of the artist
Other objects in the exhibition are made with sacred materials native to the Colombian territory that is home to the Ko’revaju community and displayed in ways that honor their traditional uses. Accompanying the installation is a text written by all four makers—”a word of encouragement” for visitors—that appears in Ko’revaju and Spanish with English translation and stresses the human task of preserving and caring for our common mother, Mother Earth.

La palabra dulce (The Sweet Word), 2023–25
Juliana Góngora Rojas, Juven Piranga Valencia, Yinela Piranga Valencia, and Taller Masipai
Courtesy of the artists
Together, the works in the exhibition make up a “cosmic weaving,” which reflects the collaborators’ experiences of the innate ties between humanity and our shared environment. They extend an invitation to recognize ourselves as guardians and stewards of everything that surrounds us, through collectivity and ritual in the shared space of the museum.
En el principio / In the beginning is curated by Anna Burckhardt Pérez, Neville Bryan Assistant Curator, Architecture and Design.