cecilia vicuña reimagines the ancient quipu as living technology
Cecilia Vicuña fills the soaring Manica Lunga at Castello di Rivoli with a suspended quipu that stretches for more than a hundred meters through the historic gallery. Entitled El glaciar ido (The Vanished Glacier), the first solo museum of the Chilean artist report in Italy draws on an ancient Andean system of tied laces to reflect on disappearing glaciers, indigenous knowledge and the ways in which materials carry memories. Vicuña transforms the quipu into an immersive environment from bamboo and raw wool.
Artist, poet and activist, Vicuña has spent decades expanding what she calls Arte Precario, a practice based on ephemeral materials, collective participation and ancestral forms of construction. Since the 1960s, her installations have transformed discarded objects, raw fibers and natural debris into works that exist between sculpture, ritual and performance. At the Castello di Rivoli, this approach takes the form of a monumental quipu acostado, a “recumbent” quipu suspended throughout the museum’s historic gallery.“The exhibition itself privileges the idea of being in the same place as the artworks. I would say that this is the case where art becomes experience, a true ’embodied’ experience.” Curator Marcella Beccaria tells designboom.
Cecilia Vicuña El glaciar ido (The Vanished Glacier), 2026 Installation view / installation view Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Rivoli-Torin Photo | all images by Sebastiano Pellion di Persano © CECILIA VICUÑA, by SIAE, unless otherwise noted
a monumental installation reminiscent of vanished glaciers
Used for centuries in all Andean cultures, the quipus recorded information through cords, knots, dyes and fibers long before the arrival of European colonists. For Vicuña, they remain more than historical artifacts. They are systems of knowledge that link material, memory and community while reclaiming cultural practices that colonial histories sought to erase.
The new facility draws directly from the landscape surrounding Rivoli. Made from bamboo canes and strips of raw wool, including fleece from the indigenous Biellese sheep breed, the work recalls the glaciers that once shaped the Susa Valley during the Pleistocene and have since retreated or disappeared. Instead of depicting climate change, Vicuña uses natural materials to suggest geologic time itself, allowing the fibers to recall melting ice, flowing water, and the gradual accumulation of memory between generations.
the floating quipu stretches for more than a hundred meters
Collective creation shapes the exhibition beyond the museum
Used in Andean cultures for centuries, the quipus recorded information through cords, knots and color long before Spanish colonization. Vicuña returns to the form throughout her career, treating it as a living practice that carries stories, histories, and relationships that the colonial project sought to suppress.
For the Castello di Rivoli, the artist anchors the quipu in the landscape surrounding the museum. The suspended structure is made of bamboo canes and strips of raw wool, including fleece from the native Biellese sheep breed. Its flowing form recalls the glaciers that once shaped the Sousse valley and the moraines in which Rivoli now stands, while also showing the rapid retreat of the Alpine ice today.
layers of raw wool create an immersive landscape within the exhibition
the craft becomes a tool of memory transfer
Poetry and sound extend the installation beyond its suspended structure. Recently written wall poems accompany the exhibition, while videos such as Semiya (Seed Song) (2015) and Quipu Mapocho (2017) bring the artist’s voice, songs and performances into the gallery, extending Vicuña’s exploration of water, memory and indigenous knowledge, treating poetry, language as powerful materials that can be preserved as powerful materials. Through local materials, collective construction and ancestral forms of knowledge, the artist suggests that craft is about constantly renewing our relationship with place, community and environment.
The exhibition also began long before visitors entered the gallery. In line with Vicuña’s vision for Arte Precario, a series of spontaneous public actions preceded the installation, including requesting permission from the surrounding mountains before the work was created. None of these gestures were documented. “According to the artist’s vision for Arte Precario, the exhibition was preceded by a series of spontaneous actions that occurred in the public sphere, starting with the artist asking the mountains of the area for permission to make the exhibition. These actions were not recorded and remain in the memory of the few people who worked with the exhibition, including the installers, our curatorial team and myself. the curator shares with us.
Raw wool causes retreat of glaciers in Susa Valley | image by Alberto Nidola © Cecilia Vicuña, by SIAE
image by Alberto Nidola © CECILIA VICUÑA, by SIAE
