Qhapaq Ñan

Qhapaq Ñan is a complex series of objects that functions both as the core of the exhibition and its animating force. It speaks with subtle elegance and powerful resonance about Andean history, culture, landscape, and of the exploitation of its natural resources, during both its colonial past and today. On one level, the fronds of wood that Vivero has laminated, bent, and then covered in either gold- or silver-leaf are deliberately very slightly mis-matched; they are inexpensive pieces of wood hand-patched together like the jerry-rigged ladders and supports that mimic the sub-standard reality most low-paid Andean workers face in makeshift and weakly regulated mines.  Yet these fronds are covered in the gold and silver that is still found so abundantly in the high Andes even after a millennium of mining. Both gold and silver have a thick, deep meaning for Andean culture, and gold was the rationale for both the Spanish incursion into the Americas, and for almost every corporate incursion into the area since.  

(Excerpt from writing by Joy Sperling for exhibition at Denison Museum, Denison University, Ohio, USA)