Born in Santiago de Chile in 1948, Cecilia Vicuña is a poet, artist, activist, and filmmaker whose work addresses ecological destruction, human rights, and cultural homogenization. After the military coup against President Salvador Allende in the early 1970s, Vicuña went into exile, later co-founding Artists for Democracy in London in 1974. Vicuña coined the term Arte Precario in the 1960s in Chile, a concept that encompasses her works made from precarious materials and structures that interact with their landscapes. Her signature works, quipus (knot-based systems), re-invent the ancient Pre-Columbian system to create poems in space, weaving together the urban environment, rivers, oceans, and people, to reflect interconnectivity. Her art bridges poetry and visual expression, hearing an ancient silence waiting to be heard. Vicuña’s solo exhibitions include major institutions like the Museo de Bellas Artes in Santiago (2023), Tate Modern (2022), and the Guggenheim Museum (2022). Her work has been featured in renowned group exhibitions such as documenta 14 (2017) and the Venice Biennale (2022). She has authored over 30 volumes of poetry and art, with her most recent books published in 2023. In 2023, Vicuña received the prestigious Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas and was awarded the Gold Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2022.
