SEEKING DIGNITY THROUGH CREATION AND RADICAL TENDERNESS: UNFES AT THE MADC
The Union of Feminists Engendering New Systems (UNFES) presents We Are Seas, Rivers, Flowers, Minerals, Volcanoes, Mountains, and Compost in all spaces of the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MADC) in San José, Costa Rica. The exhibition features more than 40 works created in Central America by feminist artists from the collective, allied collectives, and the MADC collection.
UNFES is made up of eight feminist artists, curators, and activists from various Central American countries: Maya Juracán (Guatemala), Emilia Yang (Nicaragua / Costa Rica), Marilyn Boror Bor (Guatemala), Gabriela Novoa (El Salvador), Ana Laguna (Panamá), Mariela Richmond Vargas (Costa Rica), nara ila (Nicaragua) y Risseth Yangüez Singh (Panamá) and the collectives of which they are a part.
This exhibition weaves together stories of individual and collective Central American feminist resistance against various forms of violence, reclaiming dignity through art and activism. The participating artists challenge official historical narratives, the exclusion of women and gender dissidents from contemporary art, and the erasure of Central America itself from global conversations. Their works address the systemic causes behind migration from the region — from economic, gendered, and racial violence to state repression and extractive practices.
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Espiral UNFES. Foto por: Juana Mora (Cortesía de UNFES)
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La comunidad del Compost, 2023-2024 y Rituales de Autodefensa, 2025, Gabriela Novoa. Foto por: Juana Mora (Cortesía de UNFES)
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Tras el rastro de Pancha, 2021, Colectivo Las Hartas y Retrato de Francisca "Pancha" Carrasco, 1900, atribuida a Manuel Zúñiga Azofeifa. Foto por: Juana Mora (Cortesía de UNFES)
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Tierra Maestra, 2025, Mariela Richmond Vargas. Foto por: Juana Mora (Cortesía de UNFES)
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La memoria de los cuerpos indígenas, 2025, Marilyn Boror Bor. Foto por: Juana Mora (Cortesía de UNFES)
"It fills us with joy to bring together in Costa Rica, at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MADC), these Central American artists and curators, who are also bearers of the voices, pulses of the collectivities and networks that inhabit their territories. We feel that this is an urgent time to intertwine our struggles, to weave sensitive, firm networks and thus resist together the waves of violence that cross us, sustaining us from creation and radical tenderness," said the UNFES Collective.
"For the Museum, it is an honor to receive the Central American artists and curators who make up the UNFES collective. We have worked in a committed way in the curatorial, museographic and educational fields to build an exhibition that dialogues with their diverse visions of the context, identities and material sensitivities," mentioned Sofía Villena Araya, chief curator of the MADC.
The exhibition presents the result of individual and collective research, an archive of their processes, references, inspirations and a Central American Feminist Art Library, as well as guest artists from the MADC Collection, to generate imaginaries of shared futures in solidarity, healing and liberation through art.
The exhibition will remain open until October 13, 2025, at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, WWPH+57V, Av. 3, Calle 15. West side of the National Library, San José (Costa Rica).
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