Exhibition of Women at the Municipal Museum of Modern Art in Cuenca, Ecuador
Curated by Kekena Corvalan
Curator Kekena Corbalan and La emancipada Collectiva
Organized by La Emancipada (The Emancipated), a collective based in Quito composed of Tania Lombeida Miño, Lbel Lara Pazmiño, and Pamela Pazmiño Vernaza, a new edition of the Ecuadorian Art and Women Encounter was inaugurated on March 8, 2025. This exhibition is hosted by the Municipal Museum of Modern Art in Cuenca and will be open to the public from March 8 to April 27, 2025. It features Kekena Corvalán as the guest curator, with local production by Eduarda Cevallos in collaboration with the director of the MMAM, Tania Navarrete. It is a luxury for women to work together, fully aware that the struggle is long and vast, and engaged in collective action with joy, clarity, and certainty.
Cultural Laboratory (Sofia Cardoso and Priscila Solano) Migrants on Stage: Cultural Narratives. Performance
Laboratorio Cultural (Sofia Cardoso y Priscila Solano) Migrantes en Escena: Narrativas Culturales. Performance
The theme of this encounter is We will not say goodbye even if the road darkens, and as the curatorial text points out: “We will not separate, on the contrary, we venture deeper into it even more determined so that the little light continues refracting in the opacity of our certainties. We knew how to walk alone at other times, but this time, we are together, by our own and collective decision, affirmed in every discovery of new paths, where it may darken, but it no longer matters to us. What we present here is the result of the desires and actions of a community of artists from Ecuador and around the world who remain united, scattered, and connected, aware of how close they are to each other.”
Eslabones, Amanda V. Malavé. 2020. Porcelana y plata. Medidas variables, 42cm x 28cm aproximadamente.
Bordando Abya Yala. Libro textil. Colectiva Bordando Ternura. 2022. Bordado, pintura y papel sobre lienzo. 60 cm x 40 cm x 18 cm.
The exhibition features the participation of Ecuadorian artists Priscila Gardenia Peralta Castillo, María José Machado Gutiérrez, Melissa Moreira Tupac Yupanqui, Colectivo Bordar la Ternura, Doménica Alexandra Aillón Garzón, Mikaela Montenegro, Lisa Helena Torske Lombeida, Colectivo Maternas, Catalina Guamán Chocho, Massiel Carrillo, Paola Espinoza, Amanda Velasco, Juliana Vega, Fernanda Castillo, Sofía Cardoso, and Priscila Solano. Additionally, five transnational artists who are recognized for their work on feminism and intersectional struggles have been invited. All of them share a strong border-crossing imprint. They are Ana Gallardo (Argentina/Mexico), Nora Ancarola (Argentina/Catalonia), Paola Ferraris (Chile/Argentina), Rosa Borrás (Puebla, Mexico), and Yohanna Roa (Colombia/USA).
Y habré sido, Paola Ferraris. 2024. Telas y pieza de videoarte. Medidas Variables.
Starting from the question: How do we accompany ourselves and those who feel the world differently? Artists were invited who, more than ever, bring together politics of desire and desires of politics with their poetic and aesthetic practices. There are other worlds, and they exist within this one, and it is when we gather in the room of a museum that our ways of being emerge victorious despite the generalized demolition. The idea of borders is a key concept for intertwining our actions, feelings, and desires. We are interested in border practices, crossings, and mixtures because they challenge the disciplinary logic of art.
A special focus of this proposal will circulate and highlight the figure of Eudoxia Estrella (Cuenca, Ecuador, 1925-2021), an artist, teacher, and manager, and the first director of the Municipal Museum of Modern Art, which hosts this exhibition. She was also the founder of the Cuenca Biennial. Eudoxia was a central figure in the history of Latin American art, whose influence goes beyond borders and holds regional and international significance. Her legacy is recovered from the sixth Ecuadorian Art and Women Encounter, and 20 of her works are being exhibited for the first time. This recovery of part of her sensitive production also revisits her particular use of watercolor, a genre in which she stood out with her directed casualism, which involved washing the figures once painted, creating that surreal and unsettling effect, especially in some of her portraits. Her work inspires us, as well as artists, curators, managers, educators, museologists, and women in culture in general, as a fundamental reference of emotions and thoughts from visual arts, which is more vital than ever for us.
Pangea Enciclopédica Conozco lo profundo. Yohanna M. Roa. 2018 – 2025. Collage – gráfica. 2,45 x 1,87 metros
About La Emancipada and AME
The art collective La Emancipada was founded in 2009 in Quito. It disrupts traditional and hegemonic art dynamics to fight against women’s marginalization in official discourses, academia, and art systems, not only locally but also beyond the borders where Ecuadorian women artists are rendered invisible. It is made up of artists Ibeth Lara Pazmiño, Tania Lombeida Miño, and Pamela Pazmiño Vernaza, who have produced several research projects, curations, and visual projects on art and feminism issues, including Artníbora, Artnigrafía, Spéculum, among others.
The curatorial platform Arte Mujeres Ecuador (Art Women Ecuador) (AME, 2012-2020) was created in response to the lack of exhibition spaces for women. Its objectives include reclaiming and promoting the thoughts and works of Ecuadorian women artists through a space for exhibition, research, training, and circulation for emerging artists, recognizing the long careers and posthumous national artists, and inviting Latin American artists. It also fosters the participation of curators from the region for each edition. It has published several important works, including Arte Mujeres Ecuador (Art Women Ecuador), VI Bienal Mujeres Mirando Mujeres (Women Looking at Women Biennial), Spain; Case of Study: Ecuadorian Women’s Art Venue, Feminism and Museums, Magazin, Volume 1, edited by Jenna C. Ashton, a renowned artist and curator in the UK and USA. It has participated in various individual and collective exhibitions in Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, Germany, Spain, Italy, the USA, and the UK. They have received funding from the MCYP’s competitive grants. In 2018, they managed the Seminar on Art and Feminism Unraveling History, the Threads of Memory, and various workshops on weaving, art, and feminism.
For more information: www.artemujeresecuador.org
