CISCO MEREL: LA CHANTIN

Kunsthalle Lissabon in Lisbon, Portugal, is presenting 'La Chantin,' the first solo exhibition in the country by Panamanian artist Cisco Merel. The exhibition features a site-specific installation exploring the house as an open, collective, and evolving system, inspired by the mobile, wooden 'shanty' structures built by the Afro-Caribbean diaspora during the construction of the Panama Canal.

The exhibition matters because it uses architectural form to address urgent contemporary themes of migration, displacement, and cultural resilience. By creating interactive, movable structures that visitors can rearrange, Merel physically translates the migrant experience, proposing the home not as a fixed place but as a transformable territory constantly negotiated by its inhabitants. The work connects historical survival tactics with present-day global uncertainties.