"Somos raíces" invites us into the world of Santiago Yahuarcani, a self-taught painter and sculptor from the White Heron clan of the Uitoto nation, and his partner Nereyda López, a self-taught sculptor of Tikuna and Cocama heritage. They live in the district of Pebas, on the banks of the Ampiyacú River in Loreto, Peru.

Curated by Isabella Lenzi and Rember Yahuarcani, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey through Indigenous cosmogonies rooted in oral tradition, song, vision, collective practice and resistance. Their artistic work asserts the essential harmony between humans, non-humans, and nature. Through their paintings and sculptures, they reinterpret ancestral myths and spiritual worlds, bringing them into the present while also narrating centuries of extractivism and violence—most notably the rubber boom, which deeply affected Amazonian communities and shaped their own life stories. Their creations challenge colonial narratives, opening space for the recognition and visibility of these voices.

Santiago Yahuarcani and Nereyda López are among the most significant voices in contemporary art today. Their work engages with urgent debates around memory, ecology and decoloniality. Santiago took part in the most recent edition of the Venice Biennale (2024), and together with Nereyda, they were featured in the Toronto Biennial of Art (2024) and the Mercosur Biennial (2025). This exhibition is the first dedicated exclusively to both artists outside Peru. It brings together a substantial selection of their work—from early pieces dating back to the early 2000s, never before shown outside their homeland, to recent creations made especially for this show.

Santiago primarily paints using natural dyes on llanchama, a vegetal fabric made from the bark of the renaco, a plant native to his territory. Nereyda, meanwhile, crafts her sculptures and masks using seeds, roots, fibres, and bark—patiently and respectfully gathered from her surroundings.

From their home-studio, they have woven a way of life in which art is intertwined with farming, everyday care, dreams, and the transmission of ancestral knowledge. In their family, creation does not follow an individual logic but a collective one—and until very recently, it did not require the assertion of authorship. It arises from shared labour, from respect for inherited wisdom, and from the commitment to pass it on to future generations. Each piece is born out of intergenerational exchange—from the youngest to the elders—in a process where art becomes living memory, community bond, and a daily act of resistance.

"Somos raíces" invites us to reflect on alternative ways of living in society, on the irreverence and defiance of artistic creation in the face of violence, and reclaims myth and memory as vital forces that help us confront present challenges. At the same time, it testifies to a history of resistance to the dispossession and silencing of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon.

In a historical moment of ecological, social and political crisis, this exhibition affirms a vision of art as a tool for resistance, connection, and the reimagining of the world.

Credits: Santiago Yahuarcani "Tigre rig+" (2023) Tintes naturales sobre llanchama Cortesía del artista