13.03.2025
— 01.06.2025

Namui nu pirꝋ. [Our territory]. JULIETH MORALES

Namui nu pirꝋ [Our Territory] is the first institutional solo exhibition of Julieth Morales, a Colombian artist from the Misak culture. Her work weaves a dialogue between art, ritual, and identity, reclaiming collective action and the role of women within her community.

The exhibition title, Namui nu pirꝋ [Our Territory], in the Namtrik language, highlights the significance of territory not only as a physical space but as a social and spiritual dimension. Morales draws from the concept of minga, the Indigenous tradition of collective labor, to reinterpret her people’s memory and resistance through art.
In Srusral møra kup [Young Women Spinning] (2018-2025), the act of spinning transforms into a symbol of empowerment and resistance. In this expanded version, Morales subverts traditional roles, turning spinning into a space for dialogue and sisterhood, where the voices of women from different generations resonate over time.
In Time and Space Everything Begins (2023-2025) reflects on the idea of offerings and connection to the earth. Necklaces made of earth and ash beads, crafted in collaboration with elderly women from her community, become an act of harmonization, bridging Misak spirituality with the museum context.

Through her interdisciplinary practice, Morales challenges the Western view of Indigenous art as static or folkloric, transforming it into a living process of memory, change, and resistance. Her work reminds us that territory is a network of histories, rituals, and struggles, where the past is not just remembered but continuously created.

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About the artist

Julieth Morales is a distinguished visual artist and Indigenous performer from the Misak people, originally from the department of Cauca, Colombia. Her work focuses on the intersection of gender, identity, and ethnicity, exploring the complexities of her hybrid existence as an Indigenous woman in a context of Westernization. Through media such as performance, video, photography, painting, and drawing, Morales uses her own body as a symbolic tool to reconfigure and reinterpret the traditions of her community from a critical and contemporary perspective.

Morales studied Fine Arts at the University of Cauca, where she developed a conceptual and technical foundation to explore her personal and cultural identity. This academic period marked the beginning of a profound process of self-discovery and critical analysis of the traditional rituals of her Misak people.

Her artistic practice blends tradition and modernity, questioning colonial impositions and religious syncretism that have shaped her community’s cultural practices. Her work addresses themes such as spirituality, memory, syncretism, and the role of women in the Misak worldview. In her pieces, Morales reinterprets cultural and ritual elements such as weaving, ceremonial adornments, and the body itself, transforming them into vehicles of cultural resistance and healing.

Morales uses her art as a bridge between the ancestral Misak worldview and contemporary debates on gender, territory, and cultural resistance. Through national and international exhibitions, her work has established a unique voice in the contemporary art scene, shedding light on Indigenous struggles and narratives from an intimate and poetic perspective.

Courtesy of the artist

Photo by: Juan Echeverria y Esteban Suárez (2022).

Curator: Eugenio Viola: Born in Naples, Italy, he is a curator, art critic, and holds a PhD in Methods and Methodologies of Archaeological and Historical-Artistic Research from the University of Salerno. He worked as Chief Curator at the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea DonnaRegina – MADRE (Naples) from 2009 to 2016. There, he was responsible for research on the museum’s collection and co-curated the first large-scale exhibitions in Italy by Boris Mikhailov, Francis Alÿs, and Daniel Buren, among others. From 2017 to 2019, he was Chief Curator at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts – PICA and is currently Chief Curator at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá – MAMBO.

In 2016 and 2019, Viola was recognized as the best Italian curator by Artribune magazine. Likewise, Viola curated the Estonian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Art Biennale (Jaanus Samma, ‘NSFW- Not Suitable For Work. A Chairman’s Tale’, Palazzo Malipiero, Venice). Afterwards, it was organized at the Museum of Occupations and Freedom in Tallinn, Estonia; an exhibition listed among the 15 best exhibitions in the world in 2016 by Hyperallergic, a leading American voice in contemporary art and culture perspectives. His curatorial practice has focused on experiences and theories related to new media, performance, and bodily poetics, about which he has published various articles and given numerous lectures. His writings have been published in international media such as ArtForum, Exit Express, and Flash Art. He has worked with important artists such as Marina Abramović, Regina José Galindo, Francis Alÿs, ORLAN, Kimsooja, Carlos Martiel, Teresa Margolles, Amalia Pica, Carlos Garaicoa, and Maria José Arjona, among others. Viola was appointed Curator of the Italian Pavilion 2022 for the 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, which opened on April 23, 2022.

Curatorship: Juaniko Moreno: Curator and researcher interested in cosmotechnics, language and information, nature/culture divide, and art and sustainability projects. He holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from the National University of Colombia, and a Master’s in Contemporary Art and Curatorial Studies from the China Academy of Art, in Hangzhou. He was part of the research think-tank The Terraforming 2021 at the Strelka Institute, and currently works as a professor in the Fine Arts Program at the Universidad del Bosque and as a junior curator for the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá – MAMBO.