Between Ritual and Institution: Andrea Canepa's Interventions in Spain

Andrea Canepa, a Peruvian artist born in 1980, has installed "Fardo" at the Palacio de Cristal in Madrid's Parque del Retiro, running from January 13, 2026 to January 1, 2027. The work wraps the building's perimeter in a printed fabric bearing patterns from Paracas funerary textiles, a pre-Columbian culture from southern Peru. Created during the palace's ongoing restoration (which began in 2023), the installation challenges the building's colonial history—it was built for the 1887 Exhibition of the Philippine Islands—by introducing indigenous visual and ritual references. Canepa also presented "Entre lo profundo y lo distante" at the IVAM in Valencia until April 12, 2026, which uses Andean huacas (sacred spaces) to propose a non-linear relationship between time, body, and space. Both works transform passive contemplation into active, bodily participation, using ritual as a means to reorganize the exhibition experience.

These interventions matter because they critically reconfigure how institutional spaces are perceived and inhabited. By overlaying pre-Columbian textile motifs onto a colonial-era structure, Canepa forces a reexamination of the palace's apparent neutrality and its historical role in displaying "the other" under a colonial gaze. Her work destabilizes traditional site-specificity, not merely adapting to architectural context but actively reshaping institutional narratives. This approach resonates with broader contemporary debates about decolonizing museums and rethinking the power dynamics embedded in exhibition spaces, making Canepa's practice a significant contribution to ongoing conversations about art, history, and cultural identity in Spain and beyond.