On the 27th of October, the opening night for two exhibitions took place at our Xapiri Ground Gallery. The first is an exhibition in Sala 2 called 'GAYO | remembering the clay spirit' with our guests from the Yine native community of Monte Salvado Emily Urquía Sebastián, Salome Sebastián Vargas, and Segundo Teodoro Sebastián Vargas. The second exhibition featured Crafting the Field series #09 with sound artist Agricultura Celeste.

To open the evening, we held a presentation with Emily, Salome, and Segundo where they spoke about the tradition of their ceramic artform more specifically represented by their clay spirit "Gayo" along with some behind the scenes footage of the workshop held with Xapiri Ground in their community as part of the process of recuperating the art form.

On exhibition in Sala 2 is GAYO, where you can see the process behind the recuperation of this ancestral ceramic tradition with a focus on the masks that characterize their mythical spirit of the clay. A collection of 11 masks are on display which are a part of our longterm project with the Yine that we may continue to develop these techniques with them.

Immediately following this was a live performance of the piece composed by Agricultura Celeste (aka Joan Rukmali De la colina Román) for Crafting the Field series 09 accompanied by vocals from Emily and field photography by Davis Torres.

We'd like to thank the community of Monte Salvado for opening those weeks to us and our team that we were able to learn about their traditions and their way of life today, to Emily, Salome, and Segundo for sharing this special night with us, and to Agricultura Celeste for activating our imaginations with his creative soundscape inspired by the Yine people.

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Read more about the GAYO exhibition here.

Read more about CRAFTING THE FIELD series 09 here.

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