Non Kené Nete

(Our Spiritual Worlds)
Centro Cultural Tijuana-CECUT, México
27.01.2026-2.05.2026

PROCESS

In the early 2000s, a group of Shipibo-Konibo families from various villages in the Ucayali region (Peruvian Amazon) settled in the heart of Lima, in the Rímac district, on the banks of the river of the same name, founding the community of Cantagallo. Seeking opportunities, the Shipibo families spread throughout the territory, and other families arrived to build their homes in the community.

This exhibition features artists from the lower, upper, and middle Ucayali. Specifically, from the community of Paoyhan are Pilar Arce / Metsá Rama, Dora Inuma, Marylú Silvano, Ronin Koshi, Sadith Silvano, Rosy Silvano, Lucy Silvano, Olinda Silvano, and Zaida Silvano. From Yarinacocha are Jade Rodríguez Maynas and Salomé Buenapico; from Panaillo, Wilma Maynas and Nelda Silvano; and from San Francisco, Cordelia Sánchez. Silvia Ricopa and Jaminthon Martínez from Vista Alegre; Delia Pizarro from Roya; Isolina Tananta from Nuevo Loreto; and Llermé Buenapico Barbarán from Callería. Today, they all live in Cantagallo.

With 1,600 inhabitants, Cantagallo also houses a bilingual (Shipibo-Spanish) intercultural school and various community groups and projects that work together to improve their living conditions: obtaining property titles for their homes and access to electricity and potable water.

Curatorial Statement

The exhibition Non Kené Nete [Our Spiritual Worlds] introduces the Shipibo-Konibo culture, its constant struggle to represent itself and the stories, rituals, and memories transmitted from generation to generation. It brings together the work of nineteen artists from the Peruvian Amazon, many of whom have migrated to the capital, Lima, where they founded their own community twenty-five years ago: Cantagallo, an urban Indigenous settlement that has been maintained for years as a beacon of resistance of ancestral wisdoms and Shipibo community life in opposition to processes of erasure and the homogenization of its culture within the Western world.

This exhibition showcases these experiences of urban Indigenous life from the perspective of kené textile art. The word kené describes the geometric patterns and designs based on the skin of the anaconda. Creation of kené is intrinsically connected to the knowledge that comes from plants and reciprocity with the natural world. It possesses a profound symbolic meaning as the representation of the geography of the forest, the fauna, and other living organisms.

A number of works in this exhibition were commissioned by INSITE Commonplaces for the project Common Thread, curated by Miguel A. López between 2021 and 2023. That project included nearly one hundred works in various sizes and materials, such as paintings on fabrics dyed with mahogany bark, paintings on canvas, embroideries, fabric collages, etc. The selection presented here offers a poignant testimony of community experience, the healing power of plants, solidarity among women, and forms of collective care during a period of emergency brought on by COVID-19. The community of Cantagallo was heavily affected at the beginning of the pandemic. Like many other Indigenous peoples, they had to contend with the advance of the virus without access to intercultural medical attention that incorporated an Indigenous perspective on health.

A second set of works consists of recent productions, created with thread embroidery dyed with natural dyes: each embroidered line can be read as a stroke of love, mourning, protest, and preservation of a life in close contact with nature, even in the city. Finally, a third group was carried out in the context of the Situated Fellowship Grant, 2025–26, awarded by Visible, Fondazione Pistoletto, and Fondazione Zegna, in recognition of their commitment to preserving knowledge of plants and natural life at risk of extinction. The museographic design, by Giacomo Castagnola (Germen Estudio), situates this conversation within Shipibo-Konibo knowledge systems, in which rivers, trees, anacondas, fish, and fruits are not passive entities to be dominated, but rather organisms imbued with vitality and agency.

Non Kené Nete hosts an ensemble of voices and whispers that brings together a remarkable community of creators. It is a call to find harmony with urgent practices in the struggle for survival, against dispossession, inviting us to feel how all worlds are intimately interconnected.

Gala Berger and Olinda Silvano

In memory of Jessica Silvano Inuma and Koyo Kouoh.

Acknowledgments

CURATORS
Gala Berger y Olinda Silvano

EXHIBITION DESIGN
Germen Estudio: Giacomo Castagnola y Jazmín Raso Nieves

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Cítrico Gráfico + ReD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Al Assad, Cathe Burnham, Manuel Cornejo (CAAAP), Rosella Fimbres, Crisis Galería, Rita Haudenschild and Skylar Nelson, Leon Kassel, Miguel A. López, Ángel y Ena López, Matteo Lucchetti, Juan Pablo Murrugarra, Metsá Rama (Pilar Arce), Randy Robbins and Helena Stage, Cordelia Sánchez, Judith Wielander.

INSITE Art Practices in the Public Sphere
Carmen Cuenca, Directora ejecutiva MX / Michael Krichman, Director ejecutivo US
Andrea Torreblanca, Curadora de proyectos artísticos
Juan Diaz, Asistente curatorial

SECRETARÍA DE CULTURA
Secretaria: Claudia Curiel de Icaza
Subsecretaria de Desarrollo Cultural: Marina Núñez Bespalova

CENTRO CULTURAL TIJUANA
Dirección: Miriam Gabriela García Aguirre
Subdirección de Exposiciones: Monserrat Sánchez Soler
Gerencia de Colecciones, Registro y Conservación: Carlos Alberto García Cortés
Gerencia de Exposiciones: Sinuhé Guevara Flores
Coordinación Museográfica: Leobardo García Córdova
Coordinación de Mediación de las Artes: José Luis Martin Galindo
Coordinación Operativa: Miguel Corona Ambriz
Jefa de Museografía: Elda Sandoval Flores
Restauración: Hilario Hernández Piña
Técnicos en Montaje Museográfico: Luis Hernández Dueñas, José Gabriel Terrones Aldana y José Guadalupe Sandoval Paredes
Auxiliar de Museografía: José Antonio Jaime Galaviz
Técnico de Registro y Conservación: Salatiel Leal Ursisichi
Mediación de las Artes: Susana Isabel León Amezquita, Melissa Landín Puentes, Lizeth Anali Rodríguez Sandoval
Asistente de Subdirección: Julián Zepeda

This exhibition has been made possible thanks to the support of Rosella Fimbres.

Non Kené Nete

Overview

Curatorial Statement

Acknowledgments