Cecilia Vicuña Quipu of Encounters: The Dream of Water

As an inaugural recipient of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize, New York-based Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña debuts a newly commissioned project at MOCA. Titled Quipu of Encounters: The Dream of Water, the work is the latest in Vicuña's series of collective actions developed with the participation of communities and publics, in both museums and natural sites, that she has created around the world since the 1960s. Quipu comes from the Quechua word for "knot," and this multi-phase, collaborative "quipu of encounters" will engage local artists, youth, scientists, and Indigenous water defenders in Chile and in Los Angeles in poetic and political exchanges that confront the ongoing water crises unfolding in each region. The project culminates in a ritual quipu assembly facilitated by Vicuña in Los Angeles, weaving together the struggles for water preservation in Chile and Los Angeles and building coalitions across geographies and beyond national borders. This exhibition also presents documentation in the form of writings, images, oral histories, field recordings, and other experimental forms of the collective events taking place in Chile, and is accompanied by a publication.