GABRIEL CHAILE UNFOLDS HIS ARCHAEOLOGY OF MIGRATION IN LONDON

The London-based Whitechapel Gallery presents Archaeology of Memory (Arqueología de la Memoria), a new commission by Argentine artist Gabriel Chaile (San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, 1985), currently based in Lisbon. The exhibition offers insight into Chaile’s ongoing cultural and anthropological research, creating an environment shaped by multiple histories and geographies that invites reflection on identity, memory and culture through a contemporary archaeological perspective.

For this project, Chaile has conceived a site-specific installation occupying a large gallery space, articulating a dialogue around the historical and multicultural identity of London’s East End, the area in which the institution is located. After sourcing and collecting every-day and decorative objects from the surrounding neighborhood, the artist integrates them into adobe sculptures that assume a dual function: both containers and guardians of these locally found items.

The sculptures, monumental in scale and distinctly anthropomorphic, reinterpret the forms and material language of the Indigenous communities of north-west Argentina, the region from which the artist originates. In doing so, Chaile operates simultaneously as artist, anthropologist and storyteller, exploring what he describes as a “genealogy of form” — the historical recurrence of motifs and symbols whose meanings are continually reactivated depending on their cultural and temporal context.

Archaeology of Memory ultimately takes on the character of an archaeological excavation site. Within it, collected objects and evoked cultures connect through shared affinities and intersecting histories. Underlying the project is also Chaile’s long-standing practice of collecting ceramics, which began with Portuguese pottery discovered in street markets and led him to reflect on how the movement of objects mirrors migratory experiences and questions of identity.

Gabriel Chaile: Archaeology of Memory can be seen until 6 September 2026 at the Whitechapel Gallery, 77–82 Whitechapel High Street, London (United Kingdom).