SARA FLORES AT WHITE CUBE: MAPPINGS OF THE AMAZONIAN COSMOS
Bakish Mai presents recent work by Peruvian artist and activist Sara Flores: a new film and a series of abstract, patterned paintings, which offer conceptual representations of Shipibo-Konibo ancestral knowledge—stories made visible on painted surfaces.
The exhibition’s title, also the name of the school Flores co-founded in the Peruvian Amazon, can be translated as Land of Yesterday and Tomorrow. The phrase evokes a circular notion of time, in which ancestral pasts shape the future, and gestures toward the ongoing resonance of Indigenous epistemologies within a politics of land, life, and futurity.
Flores’s work unfolds the universe of Kené: intricate abstract patterns that represent her people’s cosmic knowledge and the vast river networks of the Amazon. These lines, which evoke interconnection and reciprocity, are the “visual manifesto” of her community. In Bakish Mai, Flores transforms the space into a ceremonial environment, inviting viewers to experience the Shipibo world from a sensitive and spiritual perspective.
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Sara Flores. Untitled (Shao Maya Pei Kené, 2025), 2025. Vegetal dyes on wild-cotton canvas, 217.4 x 149 cm. Courtesy White Cube
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Sara Flores. Untitled (Ani Maya Shao Punté Kené, 2024), 2024. Vegetal dyes on wild-cotton canvas, 211 x 132.5 cm. Courtesy White Cube
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Sara Flores. Untitled (Pei Maya Kené, 2025), 2025. Vegetal dyes on wild-cotton canvas, 141.5 x 222 cm. Courtesy of White Cube
The Shipibo-Konibo people, guardians of the Peruvian Amazon, are currently facing serious threats such as illegal logging and environmental degradation. Flores, who lives and works in the jungle alongside her community, brings visibility to these struggles through her art. In her first film, Non Nete, a flag bearing Kené designs flutters in the wind, evoking the strength and vitality of her nation.
Kené is also understood as a bearer of healing, a form of contemporary identity, and a vessel of ancestral memory. Trained by her mother in the matrilineal Shipibo tradition, Flores paints without preparatory sketches, channeling visions dreamed by women and shamans. Her works evoke Ronin, the great anaconda, symbol of the rivers and mother of ayahuasca. In this exhibition, she incorporates green leaves sprouting from the designs, revealing plant agency and the power of rao, the living energy of the forest.
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Sara Flores. Non Nete (A flag for the Shipibo Nation), 2025. Single-channel video, colour and sound. Continuous loop, 3 minutes 33 seconds. Courtesy White Cube
Flores uses natural materials prepared collectively—wild cotton, river clay, tree bark, and vegetal pigments—through a communal process guided by minga, the principle of shared labor. Her Pei Kené series not only represents ancestral knowledge but activates it, proposing a life-based aesthetic grounded in interdependence. Her work opens a portal to an alternative reality where nature, art, and spirituality are deeply intertwined.
Bakish Mai will be open until September 7, 2025, at White Cube Bermondsey, 144 – 152 Bermondsey Street, London (United Kingdom).
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