Cecilia Vicuña
Explore the climate emergency through finding hope, power and regeneration in Vicuña’s artworks
Cecilia: I have had a political orientation in my art from day one but that is because I was a teenager when I read I understood that the life of this planet was endangered.
My name is Cecilia Vicuña. I’m a poet and artist I was born in Chile.
When I first came to London, I arrived in September of 1972. I got a grant from the British Council to come study here. I was here for just a few months when the military coup occurred in Chile and therefore I did not return.
So that's how I became an exile. Since then I have never been able to live in Chile again.
I call my work ‘Arte Precario’ - precarious art. Precarious because it disappears. Because it's fragile. Because it's vulnerable. Whether it is a twig, a stone, a piece of metal, a piece of plastic, everything to me feels alive with history. With decay. With the potential and possibility of dying, of dissolving, and for me that is its beauty.
It is a conscious choice on my part to focus on what is dying and disappearance. The reason for that is that when I was young everything that was decaying was regenerating life.
Now we have created the terminal death. A new kind of death in this planet. A kind of death that did not exist, that was not created by a biological process.
This new kind of death continues to be my focus and that's why all the materials that you see are shredded, falling apart and about to become nothing. Because that is what may happen to us as a species very soon unless we wake up in time to protect the ecosystems that we are destroying right now.
Use this one. This one we can convert into that. Okay so we have now uno, dos, tres and we have one from there. What about this one? That's perfect.
This is so beautiful. We could use for the for the scarf.
And you want to do this.
In the quipus that I have constructed in the, the Turbine Hall most of those materials whether it is a twig, whether it is a bamboo stick, they are disappearing. The plant fibers that I use are also disappearing.
Quipu means knot in Quechua. It is is a system of encoding information through knots that are so complex that can convey as much information as the Phoenician alphabet, which is the writing system that we use in the West. So this system of encoding information in knots was used for almost 5000 years in the Andes, until the conquest.
I suppose when I met the quipu I was flabbergasted at the notion that this incredible system existed and it had been taken away from us. Erased from our cultural memory.
A knot is a gathering of energy and if you extend that to the history of five thousand years of people making, everybody who has ever been connected to the quipu is connected to a field of knowledge, a field of love and understanding.
I began collaborating to create my art in the 60s. The audience and I become co-creators. It is an invitation for us to share so that we can acknowledge that experience is not just our own experience. Experience is what we experience together and that creates many points of view. and many points of view have to be aware of each other so that there is no oppression or domination.
And as time goes by it becomes more and more of a necessity to work including as many people as possible because we have to reconnect and rebuild and grow with the notion that we have to work together.
And why is that? Not only for a survival of our species but most of all because it's joyful. Because it's fun and it's beautiful and it's delightful.
The most beautiful experience that I have had is that when the social uprising began in Chile in October of 2019, people began picking up certain lines of my poetry and my palabrarmas.
And the line that was repeated most often and that people converted it into banners was ‘Tu rabia es tu oro’. Which means ‘Your rage is your gold’. Because it is a rage that's coming from love. From love for each other. Love for the Earth and it is this rage that can transform the world.
The rage of love, of pure love.
about the video
Encourage your students to respond to the video in their own ways – perhaps by making notes, doodles or drawings, or through gestures and sounds.
Since the late 1960s Cecilia Vicuña has created poems, paintings, sculpture and film to explore and create alternative systems of knowledge.
"Your rage is your gold"
Cecilia Vicuña
Vicuña's approach respects the Indigenous traditions that are a part of Chile’s history, while finding new ways to form connections with others.
In this video, she talks about her exploration of quipu, an ancient South American recording and communication system made from knotted threads that encodes information, similar to a writing system. Vicuña foregrounds collaboration within her work and highlights our collective responsibility to change destructiveness, injustices and harm.
Discuss
Your students' ideas and experiences are the best starting point for any discussion. Using the prompts below, support meaningful and creative discussions in the classroom about the video’s key themes. Discover how Cecilia Vicuña's practice can inspire your students to learn with art.
Fragility and Decay
Vicuña’s work focuses on what is ‘dying and disappearing’. While decay used to contain the possibility of regeneration, in the video she says we have now created a new kind of death, which she calls a ‘terminal death’.
Prompts
- What do you think Vicuña means by this?
- How do the materials she uses and the objects she makes express this idea? What other materials can you think of that could also express this?
- Vicuña calls her art ‘precarious art’ because it is fragile and will disappear over time. Why do you think an artist might make work that disappears?
Hope and Renewal
Since the 1960s Vicuña has worked collaboratively with audiences as a way of inviting a shared experience. She says that this is a way of giving space to multiple points of view, which is more important now than ever. In her work, Vicuña holds a space for hope. Hope for recovery, renewal and a return to a better environmental balance.
Prompts
- How does Vicuña’s work make you feel? Can you find the hope within it? Where do you think hope is located?
- What do you think the benefit is of hearing different people's points of view on a subject? How might hearing multiple points of view be relevant to confronting the climate emergency?
- Imagine being inside one of Vicuña's artworks where you can see the many knots tied by the many hands that made it. What do you think being inside the artwork would make you want to do, think or imagine?
Rage and Power
In the video Vicuña says, ‘your rage is your gold’. She suggests the possibility that anger can be turned into something beautiful, important and powerful.
Prompts
- What do you feel strongly about? What does your ‘gold’ look like?
- What makes you angry? How could you transform your anger into something powerful and make change in the world?
- Think together about ways to make art that turns your ‘rage into gold’. How could you express your ‘gold’ creatively?
How to use Artist Stories
Introduce art and artists into your classroom with Artist Stories resources. The resources combine engaging videos and thoughtful discussion points to encourage confidence, self-expression and critical thinking. Art is a powerful tool for discussing the big ideas that impact young people's lives today.
- Explore the video:
- Read About the video to introduce the artists to your students.
- Project the video or watch it in smaller groups.
- Each video is between 3–10 minutes.
- Transcripts are included where available.
2. Discuss the video:
- Invite your students to respond to a discussion prompt individually. They could record their responses through writing, drawing, making or voice recording. (5 minutes)
- Invite your students to share their ideas and responses with someone else. What have they learned about themselves or others by sharing their responses? (5 minutes)
- Invite your class to share their thoughts and ideas in groups or as a whole class, inviting multiple perspectives and experiences. (10 minutes)
