Entertainment: Indigenous Colombia at the MMFA

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is proud to present Portable Universe: Thought and Splendour of Indigenous Colombia from June 3 to October 1, 2023. The exhibition is the culmination of several years of close collaboration between the curatorial team and the Arhuaco community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region in northern Colombia. The largest exhibition of art from Colombia ever to be presented outside of that country, it proposes alternative ways of approaching the world around us and presents a completely new perspective on Indigenous art from this region. The exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as the Museo del Oro and the Unidad de Artes y Otras Colecciones of the Banco de la República, Colombia, in collaboration with the MMFA.

Portable Universe: Thought and Splendour of Indigenous Colombia brings together some 400 works of art from Colombia dating from about 1500 BCE to the present day, most of which have never been exhibited in Canada. This major show gives centre stage to Indigenous perspectives in what is a departure from the more traditional museum discourse about the arts. It invites visitors to engage in a cultural dialogue across space and time and to reflect on a different way of understanding the world and our place in it.

The artistic creations presented offer a timely reminder that this planet is our shared home. Moreover, they broaden our understanding of how we relate to it and to each other. “The works that make up the exhibition are therefore not simply material objects but vectors of ancestral memory and knowledge,” explains Erell Hubert, Curator of Pre-Columbian Art at the MMFA and curator of the Montreal presentation. “Their messages continue to hold great relevance for our world today and lead us to think, among other things, about the interdependence between our planet and all the beings that inhabit it. Portable Universe offers an opportunity to reflect on our individual and collective roles in maintaining a balance in nature. The Arhuaco community invites visitors to connect with the works, hear their messages, and become active participants in preserving this balance,” she adds.

With the European conquest, Indigenous cultures of the Americas were discredited, and the well-established system to which millions of people turned to understand the meaning of life and existence was reduced to crude superstition. This exhibition attempts to restore a number of these millennia-old teachings by revealing the works’ intrinsic meaning and the life they contain.

It draws from contemporary Indigenous concepts to paint a vision of the world in which ancient works of art have relevance for today and tomorrow. Arhuaco wisdom also teaches that the works in this exhibition were made in conjunction with the principles of creation, and therefore have no beginning or end, which is why the decision was made to not include dates on the individual labels for these items. Instead, the focus is put on their role as participants in the networks of life.

– Jennifer Cox