Chinatown, New York
Group Exhibition
The Living Land
ProxycoProxyco and Instituto de Visión are pleased to present The Living Land, a group exhibition that approaches the land not merely as landscape or environment, but as a living entity shaped by memory, labor, resistance, and transformation. Beginning with works deeply rooted in the natural world, such as the paintings of Olinda Silvano and Sheroanawë Hakihiiwë, the exhibition expands into broader explorations of what is understood as natural within society, and, conversely, what has been constructed as cultural norm. The land is never neutral. It is cultivated, contested, inhabited, exploited, protected, and imagined. Likewise, the exhibition reflects on how certain practices, bodies, and forms of existence have historically been excluded or deemed “unnatural” by dominant social structures. This condition becomes evident in the ways expressions related to sexuality, identity, politics, and even food have been regulated or stigmatized to reinforce systems of control, exploitation, and patriarchal and hegemonic power. Bringing together distinct artistic perspectives, The Living Land questions the boundaries between nature and culture, revealing them as fluid constructions rather than fixed categories. The exhibition proposes alternative ways of understanding our relationship to bodies, territories, and systems of knowledge, foregrounding interdependence, reciprocity, and care as vital forms of coexistence. Underlying the exhibition is the notion of grace understood not as a passive gift, but as a practice of hope. Hope, like the land, belongs to those who cultivate it. It is not an abstract promise but something sustained through collective labor, acts of care, and the persistent work of imagining and creating more just ways of inhabiting the world. In this sense, The Living Land is both a reflection on what exists and an invitation to nurture what is still possible.