FINAL CITY – AWE-INSPIRING.
We’ve arrived at our final city of the trip – Cusco! We’re a bit cloudy right now trying to adjust to the high altitude so please excuse this blog if it’s slightly non-sensical. Hopefully the cocoa tea is kicking in as we’re gaining our bearings! Flying in over the Andes was a spectacular experience, and was in stark contrast to the bustling city of Lima, a total population of 8 million, that we just left behind. Cusco, on the other hand, is only a population of 1/2 million. (And remember, we started in Mexico City which is population 20 million, wow!!!) So we’re making our way to increasingly smaller cities – and with this progression we’re also experiencing cities with increasingly less infrastructure for contemporary art.
Although we’re exhausted right now from a late group dinner last night (which was absolutely extravagant – we all took lots of pictures of the exquisite food) and an early flight this morning, it’s refreshing to be surrounded by green and greeted by a professional and enthusiastic Peruvian tour guide, Julian (who speaks perfect English). For those who managed to still have some energy, Julian gave us a speedy tour of the city where we saw original Inca walls, a beautiful colonial cathedral, and the center square. Our mouths were dropped the entire time and they’ll probably stay that way until we leave because everything is so breath-taking here.
It is hard to believe we are nearing the end of our trip, but we are excited to start digesting the big picture in order to begin to make sense of our overall experience here in Latin America…
ECLECTIC MIX.
We should probably back up a minute because as you may have noticed nobody blogged for yesterday’s activities. That doesn’t mean we didn’t do anything! In fact, it was a very busy day full of a diverse group of speakers, and ending with a delicious meal cooked by Peru’s number one best chef. Of course we didn’t want this to be left undocumented, so here we go.
Instituto Nacional de Cultura/ Museo de la Nacion
We started our day at the Museo de la Nacion which houses the Instituto Nacional de Cultura (INC). The bus pulled up to the giant cement “fortress”, quite an unwelcoming building to say the least and we were led into the meeting room which was set-up very formally – national flags at the front of the room, plastic name tents for each speaker, a microphone, powerpoint, and LOTS of government propaganda material handed out to us. The speakers included: Fabricio Valencia (Director of Defense, Historical Patrimony – yes, you read that correctly), Wilfredo Torres (Director of Registry), and Ana Maria Lebrun. None of them looked like they wanted to be there. They delivered a very canned speech to us making it difficult for everyone to keep their eyes open. They discussed the laws in place to protect the antiquities and historical sites of their country.
Luckily, to make up for the sterile speech, students went to a fascinating photography exhibition titled, “Yuyanapaq. To Remember”, a show about the civil war of Peru from 1980-2000, which was on display at the National Museum. This show helped provide a stronger context to understand how the contemporary art scene developed in a non-western way because it brought to our attention how really recent the war was and how it has affected the people and artists in Peru. The installation of the exhibition was interesting because it was divided into many small cells, almost giving a feeling of being in prison. Although the actual space is oddly shaped, it worked very well for this specific show however we’re curious to how it will function for future shows.
Museo de Arte Contemporanea Lima (MAC)
Ok, this is a bizarre place. Ready: a museum conceived 50 years ago, construction started 10 years ago, and today there’s still no building or mission or collection policy!!! BUT, there’s a salaried staff of eight people and they have an outdoor exhibition installed in the construction site within the park. We were all dumb-founded by this paradox. The old mayor 10 years ago agreed to give the space to this museum, but the new mayor does not agree with it so they are currently in legal limbo. The Director of MAC assured us (unconvincingly so) that the building will be complete in 2010. Everyone we met with in Lima mentioned MAC as an absolutely ridiculous space because the controversy has been going on for so long.
Micromuseum
The Director of the Micromuseum, which is a nomadic organization that travels its exhibitions around to different spaces, gave us a theatrical performance. This could not have been any more different than how our day begun with the INC folks. He spoke in a poetic way with conviction and passion.
Time to wrap up! We think the altitude must be getting to us now because we can no longer think clearly. Sorry for the abrupt ending, but we have a 4:30 AM wake up call tomorrow morning as we will be trekking off to Machu Picchu. Can’t wait!!!
