Crafting Memory: Contemporary Life and Folk Art in the Andes

This exhibition explores the new directions taken by current Peruvian folk artists during the recent decades of social and political upheaval and economic change. The show will highlight the biographies and social histories of contemporary artists along with examples of work that: preserves family tradition; re -imagines older art forms; reclaims pre-Columbian techniques and styles; and forges new directions for arte popular in the 21st century. 

The past forty years have been a time of tremendous change in the Andes, beginning with the Agrarian Reform of 1969 that broke up the large haciendas; a twenty-year internal armed conflict with the Shining Path that engulfed the 1980’s and 1990’s and claimed nearly 70,000 lives; economic swings, rapid development, the recent large investment in preserving archaeological heritage and the current booming tourism industry.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website