ANTONIO PAUCAR'S ANDEAN POETICS RECOGNIZED BY ARTES MUNDI

Supported by the Bagri Foundation, Artes Mundi —the UK’s leading biennial exhibition and international contemporary art prize— has announced Antonio Paucar as the winner of its eleventh edition, awarding him £40,000. Born in 1973 in Huancayo, Peru, and currently living and working between Berlin and Huancayo, Paucar was selected among six international artists whose works are on view across multiple venues in Wales until 1 March 2026.

Paucar’s presentation is hosted at Mostyn in Llandudno and brings together performance, sculpture and video informed by the material culture of his Indigenous Andean background. His practice engages with the contemporary struggles faced by Indigenous communities, addressing environmental threats to land, water and ways of life. For AM11, he presents a group of large-scale handwoven alpaca wool sculptures, accompanied by performance documentation that records live actions rooted in ritual and symbolic intervention.

Key works include Illapa (2021), shown alongside a projection of Suspendio en la Quenua (2014). Paucar has also revisited an earlier gesture to create a new performance responding specifically to the physical and geographic context of North Wales. The resulting trace —a clay-marked imprint produced by a handstand against the gallery wall— is displayed together with a film of the action. At the National Museum Cardiff, the artist presents an expanded version of La Energia Espiral del AYNI II, consisting of a video performance and a spiralling circular form made of black and white alpaca wool.

Another significant work, El Corazón de la Montaña (2018–19), was produced in the Huaytapallana mountain range, an area facing glacier retreat, ecological damage and increasing risk for communities dependent on its ecosystem. In this piece, Paucar writes a sentence in his native wanka lima language using his own blood, conveying a message of mourning for the sacred mountains revered by the Mantaro Andean people.

Upon receiving the award, Paucar emphasized his intention to restore his grandparents’ abandoned adobe house and convert it into a small independent art school, responding to the lack of local artistic institutions in Huancayo. The Artes Mundi 11 jury praised his long-term engagement with local environments and communities, as well as a sensitive economy of means grounded in sustainability and material awareness.

Alongside this announcement, Sancintya Mohini Simpson received the Derek Williams Trust Artes Mundi Purchase Prize, enabling the acquisition of her work for the permanent collection of Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales. She is a descendant of indentured labourers sent from India to work on colonial sugar plantations in South Africa. Working across painting, video, poetry and performance, her practice addresses migration, memory and trauma while engaging with silences within the colonial archive. Her work is presented at Chapter, Cardiff, and as part of the group exhibition at the National Museum Cardiff.