El glaciar ido (The vanished glacier)

The Rivoli Castle Museum of Contemporary Art presents the first solo exhibition in an Italian museum of Cecilia Vicuña, a multifaceted figure born in Santiago de Chile in 1948. An artist, poet and activist, Vicuña has developed a path that intertwines feminism, ecology and defence of the democracy. The focus of his research is the’Precarious Art, a term coined in the 1960s to describe ephemeral works made from debris and found materials, in open contrast to colonial legacies.

The exhibition, staged in the Long Sleeve, focuses on a new commission: a quipu acostado. Inspired by the quipus (nodes in language Quechua) of the ancient Andean civilisations, the artist transforms this writing and recording system into a monumental suspended horizontal installation. Made with raw, unbleached wools, the work traverses space evoking the passage of geological time and human transience. The project boasts a strong participatory nature: the local communities are invited to collect natural fragments such as wood, stones e shells from the river Dora Riparia and the lakes of Avigliana.

Through this collective act, the work becomes a “weaver” of links between people and territories, recalling the memory of the extinct glaciers of Susa Valley. The exhibition is enriched by video works, sounds, songs and new poems written especially for the occasion, offering a comprehensive view of an artist who has made precariousness a form of cultural resistance.