Opening: Saturday, August 2nd, 11 a.m
Organized by BIENALSUR and the Cuenca Biennial, this exhibition brings together works that confront, through diverse artistic languages, the effects of poor policies—decisions that, whether stemming from democracies or dictatorships, fail to protect life in common and instead perpetuate harm, inequality, and suffering. Censorship, neglect, poverty, repression: the symptoms may differ, but the deeper reality remains the same.
Some pieces speak powerfully, others through ellipsis or poetry, but they all point to the same reality: the traces left behind by harmful policies. In the face of this reality, art becomes archive, testimony, or resistance. It doesn't just denounce what has happened—it also bears witness to what continues to take place. Here, the political is not an abstract category, but a dimension manifested in bodies, territories, and everyday experiences. From that place, each work offers a way of seeing what official discourse strives to forget.
“Art cannot replace politics, but it can challenge it in its blind spots,” wrote Nelly Richard. Perhaps that is where its power lies: in revealing what is meant to be made invisible, in unsettling what is taken for granted, and in opening sensitive cracks where it is still possible to envisage something different.
Image: Graciela Sacco, ¿Quién fue?