LES EGUSQUIZA: THE MOUNTAIN BEYOND GEOGRAPHY, AT LA COMETA
Por Álvaro de Benito
The Peruvian artist’s practice stems from her conviction that territory must be understood as something beyond the geographic or artificial limits of a place, elevating space into a site where sensory dynamics and movement converge.
The Madrid branch of La Cometa gallery presents El viaje de la montaña (The Journey of the Mountain), an exhibition project by Les Egusquiza (Lima, Peru, 1988) built around a profound inner purpose: the reconstruction of an inherited memory that is territorial in nature and shaped by the unfolding of existence.
Following this line of thought, the mountain as a symbol is not merely a geological element. Part of its identity distances itself from the cartographic and the geographic to be perceived as a symbolic entity that brings together experience, memory, and perception. As part of the methods employed in the works on view, Egusquiza travels through several regions of Peru and, along these journeys, collects soil samples from each location, imbuing them with a sense of corporeality and remembrance.
This experiential journey—shaped by family memories and the revisiting of her childhood landscapes—serves as the intangible foundation for the materialization of the works in prints on fabric. These textiles are then submerged and washed in the riverbed. The ritual embedded in this gesture is linked to lived experience, yet it also operates as a technique that draws on both physical and incorporeal elements to achieve the final result.
The artist’s entire process reveals a parallel between fieldwork and physical action, and between memory and perception. It highlights the territory as an affective environment that impacts us on every level, inviting viewers to reflect on the bidirectionality of this transformation: what the territory leaves within us, and what we in turn leave in it.
Les Egusquiza. El viaje de la montaña can be seen until January 24 at the Madrid headquarters of La Cometa, located at San Lorenzo 11, Madrid (Spain).
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