Arte al Límite Magazine Review, By Vania Oyarzún López, November 12, 2025
At the 17th Cuenca Biennial, curator Amy Rosenblum presented a project that transcends the traditional boundaries of contemporary art, bringing together a team of knowledgeable and intellectual women from different continents. From a profoundly spiritual perspective, her proposal is structured as a dialogue between art, community, and healing.
“Today, my curatorial proposal isn’t really mine. This is a team of women who are, at the same time, curators of very important biennials and intellectuals, and are Indigenous knowledge holders from five continents. I am the director who seeks the funding so that they can do the work,” Rosenblum explains.
The project, which begins in [year missing], is characterized by private opening ceremonies where participants consult with the spirit, before assuming their roles as curators and intellectuals. From this connection, they reflect on what art can do for the good of the planet and humanity.
The curator emphasizes the importance of relationships in her practice, where the human and community process is as relevant as the artwork itself. “My personal curatorial methodology starts with community advisors—people who don’t always come from the art world—because I’m interested in broadening the audience and working from a collective perspective,” she explains.
Among her artistic team are Carmen Vicente (Ecuador), Sethembile Msezane (South Africa), and Astrid González (Colombia), who share a spiritual and symbolic quest rooted in their own traditions. Rosenblum recounts that the staging process was intense and deeply emotional: “My artists have laughed together, they’ve cried together. We shared difficult moments, but they’ve done so well. It’s been a community experience.”
The Patricio Muñoz Acquisition Prize was awarded to Carmen Vicente for her worksChacana Florida and Infinite StepsThe award was presented by Jenny Arízaga, Director of Culture and Tourism for the Azuay Prefecture. Her work recovers ancestral memory and indigenous spirituality through the use of natural and symbolic materials, in a search for healing and connection with the cosmos.
During her speech, Carmen Vicente expressed: “I salute the center of the earth and its beloved Ecuador. It is a common good to have a Biennial in every corner of the earth. May this multiply in the hands of the artists who work, those who sow, and those who sign agreements, so that we may have a Universal Biennial.”
Rosenblum and her team's project thus establishes itself as one of the most sensitive and spiritual proposals of this edition, uniting the ancestral and the contemporary, the feminine and the universal, in a single intention: to remember that art can also heal.
*Translated from Spanish original
Original article here.
