TERRITORIO. VIDEOARTE DESDE CENTROAMÉRICA
Territory is the first monographic exhibition on video art and video performance from Central America to be held in Spain. The project explores the contemporary art landscape of this region, highlighting how sixteen artists from small countries have managed to compensate for the paucity of resources thanks to their considerable imagination. The exhibition focuses on video art and video performance practices that began to take hold in the nineteen-nineties, in the aftermath of the armed conflicts that affected several of those countries. These works reflect the weakness of their democracies and the constant backdrop of violence and corruption that mark their contexts.
The development of this genre in Central America was driven by pioneers such as the Costa Ricans, Otto Apuy and Manuel Zumbado, and the Guatemalan, Sandra Monterroso. It was consolidated at the end of the nineteen-nineties and the early years of this century, especially in Guatemala, with performance artists such as Regina José Galindo and Aníbal López, who conceived video as a tool for recording and enhancing their ephemeral actions. The exhibition is structured around three thematic areas.
The first presents works by Manuel Chavajay and Regina José Galindo (Guatemala), Donna Conlon (USA/Panama), and Patricia Belli (Nicaragua), which explore the relationship between the natural elements, life, and human conflicts.
On display in a second room is the work of Karla Solano (Costa Rica), who works with the body and its expressiveness, along with works from indigenous artists from Guatemala, such as Sandra Monterroso, Antonio Pichillá, Edgar Calel, and Benvenuto Chavajay, whose creations focus on recovering ancestral knowledge, healing ‘colonial wounds,’ and denouncing violence and racism. The work of Elyla (Nicaragua) reviews queer history and identity, Abigail Reyes (El Salvador) addresses the issue of emigration, and Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa (Guatemala) focuses on historical memory.
The final area of the exhibition addresses issues such as urban insecurity and extractivism. It features works from Adán Vallecillo (Honduras), Jorge de León, and María Adela Díaz (Guatemala). A series of videos by the MACÚ collective is also presented, inspired by events that marked Guatemalan urban society in the nineteen-nineties.
As a whole, the exhibition aims to offer a polyphonic conversation through images and sounds that reflect the synchronicities, subjectivities, and complexities of the Central American territory, transcending its geographical borders.
Date:
16 October 2025 - 18 January 2026
Curator:
Rossina Cazali, Santiago Olmo
Artists:
Patricia Belli, Edgar Calel, Benvenuto Chavajay, Manuel Chavajay, Donna Conlon, María Adela Díaz, Elyla, Regina José Galindo, Jorge de León, MACÚ, Sandra Monterroso, Antonio Pichillá, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Abigail Reyes, Karla Solano, Adán Vallecillo