Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo presents 'Minga for the Sea,' a major new commission by Chilean artist, poet, and activist Cecilia Vicuña, running from May 29 to August 9, 2026. This is Vicuña's first major presentation in Scandinavia, featuring two large horizontal quipus made from locally sourced raw wool, one dedicated to the Southern Hemisphere/Chile and the other to the Northern Hemisphere/Sápmi. The quipus incorporate contributions from Indigenous and environmental defenders, including poems, drawings, and videos, forming a polyphonic archive of cultural resistance against destructive resource extraction and pollution of marine environments.
The exhibition matters because it reanimates the pre-Columbian quipu—a system of communication deliberately destroyed by colonizers—as a living, collective medium that connects struggles across distant geographies. By linking Chilean coastal defenders with Sámi activists opposing mining waste dumping in Riehpovuotna/Repparfjord, Vicuña highlights the obscured relations between global systems of extraction, such as Norwegian salmon farming's reliance on Chilean fish. The show underscores the interdependence of all ecosystems and the urgent need for transnational solidarity in defending the sea, the origin of all life.