Latin America as a construct fulfills a modernity project to homogenize a region full of contradictions and layered histories. It is composed of a multitude of cultural, ethnic, political, social, economic, histories, and experiences, with fewer commonalities than differences. It is also a region marked by colonialism and neocolonial tendencies, continuously under threat by imperialist interests. This imposed construct is marked by centuries of violence, with the intention of erasing Indigenous presence. How can we celebrate Latin American Heritage Month in October, far away from the region, without challenging and questioning this reality?

The exhibition Seeds of Our Ancestors invites viewers to question, reflect, and understand the nuances behind the construction of heritage and identity and instead seeks to draw attention to what has been ignored, erased, and neglected. The artists Hugo Bernilla and Maria Luisa de Villa search for wisdom from the land they come from, honouring Andean and Mesoamerican ancestral knowledge from those territories. Their artistic explorations and processes reclaim ancestral food technology and agricultural knowledge as critical to understand their Peruvian and Mexican identity, linking embodied memory and their connection to land. Celebrating and honoring millennial knowledge as integral and living within their own identities and heritage, these artists develop an aesthetic language that recognizes that food is heavily tied to land, memory and life.

Restoring relationships and recognizing value in Indigenous knowledge from Abya Yala, these artists recover and highlight the interconnections, purposes, and relationships that thrive despite colonial and imperial attempts to deny and erase.

Curated by Tamara Toledo.