Celia Vasquez Yui: The Council of the Mother Spirits of the Animals was on view August 26–December 17, 2023, at the Johnson Museum of Art, where it was initiated and organized by Andrea Inselmann, the Gale and Ira Drukier Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art in collaboration with the Shipibo Conibo Center, New York, and its executive director, Matteo Norzi.
In October 2023, Peruvian ceramic artists Celia Vasquez Yui and her daughter Diana Ruiz Vasquez visited Ithaca for a series of programs in conjunction with the exhibition, including a public hands-on workshop at the Museum and this interview by Ananda Cohen-Aponte, associate professor of art history, and Juliana Fagua Arias, PhD student in art history. Their conversation explored the interconnected nature of art making, environmental activism, and struggle toward Indigenous sovereignty by the Shipibo-Konibo people in the Peruvian Amazon.
Celia Vasquez Yui: The Council of the Mother Spirits of the Animals was supported by the Russell ’77 and Diana Hawkins Exhibition Fund, the Hartell-Cattarulla Endowment for Exhibitions, and generous gifts from Ira Drukier ’66 and Gale Drukier and from Richard F. Tucker ’50 and Genevieve M. Tucker.
Installation photographs by David O. Brown; video and images of the artists’ public workshop at the Johnson Museum on October 15, 2023, by Rodrigo Guzman-Serrano and Wendy Kenigsberg.
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