13/03/2026
We are very proud to announce Antonio Pichilla’s participation at the in a collaborative project with . Him inclusion marks an important milestone that follows his participation at the Paiz Biennale in Guatemala.
Antonio Pichillá weaves the landscape with his entire being. Each strand of his textile pieces is shaped by meticulously precise and considerate gestures rooted in Tz’utujil culture, passed down from generations of women including his mother. Deconstructing and reconstructing traditional textile practices while challenging Western modes of production, conservation, and extraction, Pichillá uses a range of tools, including a backstrap loom, to mobilize his embodied knowledge.
In two video performances, Pichillá brings life, movement, and choreographic texture to these ideas as he demonstrates the process of weaving the land and water with his body. Tejiendo el paisaje (Weaving the Landscape] (2020) captures him in Lake Atitlan, while in Cordon umbilical (Umbilical Cord) (2021) he is tethered to a tree in the forest, using it as an anchor point for his pattern making. From the waters of Central America to the Arctic community of Tuktuyaaqtuuq, these performances are juxtaposed with Inuvialik artist Maureen Gruben’s Stitching My Landscape (2017), an action consisting of connecting one hundred and eleven ice-fishing holes with three hundred metres of red broadcloth. The video captures the physicality of rolling fabric from portal to portal, an act of endurance and devotion that parallels subsistence hunting, and creates a lingering trace, a performance score, and even a mended scar in and on the landscape.