Damián Ayma Zepita's Art Arrives at the Mercosur Biennial

The Aymara photographer's powerful visual work dialogues with works by sixty Latin American and Caribbean artists at the 14th Mercosur Biennial, one of the most significant platforms for contemporary art in Latin America. Damián Ayma Zepita captured the everyday and ceremonial realities of rural communities in the Bolivian highlands. His archive, now housed by the MUSEF (National Museum of Natural History), consists of more than 18,000 negatives, glass plates, and printed photographs, many of which have never been seen outside of Bolivia.

Amid a deeply moving setting, marked by the power of nature and the resilience of the Brazilian people, Bolivia is present at the 14th Mercosur Biennial, one of the most significant platforms for contemporary art in Latin America, with the powerful visual work of Damián Ayma Zepita, an Aymara photographer who for decades documented Andean life and spirituality from an insider's perspective.

The exhibition, which was scheduled to open on September 12, 2024, in Porto Alegre, was postponed due to the unprecedented flooding that hit the entire state of Rio Grande do Sul. Constantly heavy rains caused dam collapses, rivers to burst their banks, and massive population displacements. The city, the historic home of the Biennial since its inception in 1997, has been the scene of a tragedy that left thousands homeless, as well as dead and missing.

Given this context, the Mercosur Biennial Foundation decided to postpone its opening, announcing that there was a high probability of rescheduling the event for 2025. And so it was. Since March 27, the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore (MUSEF) has been projecting itself onto the continental stage with photographs from its heritage archive, taken by Damián Ayma Zepita (1921–1999), an Aymara visual chronicler who dedicated his life to recording the daily and ceremonial realities of rural communities in the Bolivian highlands. His work—which was declared a Memory of the World in 2019 by UNESCO's MOWLAC Program—represents not only documentary testimony but also an act of aesthetic sovereignty from Indigenous peoples. The images, selected by the Biennial's curatorial team under the concept "Estalo" (Snap), are part of a visual corpus that challenges colonial visual narratives and positions Indigenous subjects as producers of history and aesthetics.

According to the MUSEF press release, the exhibition is taking place at the Gasometer Power Plant, an emblematic cultural center in Porto Alegre. There, the legacy of Damián Ayma Zepita interacts with proposals from more than 60 Latin American and Caribbean artists, in a profound exchange about bodies, territory, spirituality, and memory.

Unlike traditional documentary photography approaches, Ayma Zepita's work neither exoticizes nor distances: she portrays, through her own experience, the active part of communities and their life cycles. Her archive, now housed by the MUSEF, consists of more than 18,000 negatives, glass plates, and printed photographs, many of which have never been seen outside of Bolivia.

This participation marks a milestone in the history of Indigenous photography on the international contemporary art scene, and positions the MUSEF as a leading institution in the safeguarding, dissemination, and reinterpretation of decolonizing visual heritage.

“We are not just carrying photographs: we are carrying with us the spirituality, community life, struggles, and aesthetics of the indigenous peoples of the Andes. It is a voice that was not silenced; it is an image that multiplies in Latin American memory,” the press release emphasizes.

The MUSEF also invites national and international audiences to visit the permanent gallery dedicated to Damián Ayma Zepita at its main headquarters in La Paz. This gallery, open Monday through Sunday, allows visitors to explore his work in a comprehensive manner, bringing visitors closer to an aesthetic woven with patience, identity, and human depth.

Damián Ayma Zepita didn't just carry a camera: he carried time. On horseback, in trucks, or on foot, with a camera equipment weighing almost 30 kilos, Damián traveled the roads of the highlands, the valleys, and the edges of the Bolivian Amazon with the firm intention of recording the life of the people. He had no formal academic studies, but trained by developing film in Buenos Aires and perfecting his eye under the untamed sun of Thaya Pacha. His biography is interwoven with the untold history of the country: he documented mines like Colquiri, high-altitude carnivals, agricultural rituals, worker identifications, and family portraits that are testimony to this today. He is known as a photographer, but he was also a farmer, rancher, community planner, and an authority in his ayllu.

The impact of Damián Ayma Zepitano's work is expressed not only in the exhibitions but also in an essential reference publication: the catalog "Damián Ayma Zepita. The Itinerant Photographer," published by the MUSEF in 2016. This work brings together 155 photographs selected from more than 3,000 digitized photographs and is the result of rigorous archival, technical, and ethnographic research. Its pages reveal Ayma Zepita's life, his versatility as a farmer, rancher, designer, and photographer, as well as his keen aesthetic perception forged among Andean valleys, mines, and rituals. The catalog can be purchased at the Jatha-MUSEF store, as a tangible tribute to one of the most powerful visions of 20th-century Bolivia. This publication is simultaneously an educational tool, a gesture of memory, and a visual manifesto that places the Indigenous subject at the center of the national narrative.

Despite the tragedy, the decision to keep the Mercosur Biennial alive reaffirms Porto Alegre's essential place as the epicenter of Latin American artistic thought. From Bolivia, the MUSEF joins this commitment to cultural and ethical reconstruction, convinced that art is a form of care, healing, and shared memory. It can be visited until June 1.

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