In Quito, Eight Ecuadorian Artists Revisit the 1992 Amazonian March

The Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito is hosting “Kawsay 1992: Por la tierra, por la vida, levantémonos”, a group exhibition devoted to the 1992 march led by the Kichwa, Achuar and Shiwiar communities of Pastaza province, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Bringing together eight Ecuadorian artists, the project places that episode at the heart of a contemporary reflection on territory, memory and the dignity of Indigenous peoples.

The exhibition traces a journey of more than 500 kilometres, undertaken by participants from the Amazon to the capital, Quito. The artists draw on video, photography, painting and sculpture to reconstruct that route and convey its symbolic weight. The title, “Kawsay 1992”, refers to a Kichwa term associated with life and the living world, underscoring the existential dimension of the mobilisation.

In 1992, the quincentenary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, Indigenous claims took on particular resonance across the continent. The Pastaza march formed part of this broader context in which First Peoples asserted their voices, demanding recognition of their territorial and cultural rights.

The eight artists featured offer, through their works, an Amazonian reading of independence: rather than a narrative centred on the nineteenth-century national independences, they invite viewers to think about emancipation from the standpoint of Indigenous territories and cosmologies. This perspective shifts the usual lens on Ecuadorian and Latin American history.

Little information is available on the exhibition's closing date or on any possible extensions. Through this project, the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito continues its commitment to artistic practices rooted in the country's social and environmental realities.

---

Written by the ADM desk based on Artishock. Read the original article for the full story.