Nous n'allons pas disparaître

“We’re not going to disappear” is Marco Herrera’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. After winning the first prize for contemporary art in 2024 from the North American Cultural Institute of Peru (ICPNA), Herrera presents this research on the diversity of languages in Peru, with particular attention to the five less used or critical languages (Muniche, Iñapari, Omagua, Resígaro, Taushiro).

The interest in exploring the linguistic diversity of Peru and the citizen’s exercise to strengthen language rights, result in constant collaboration between translators, interpreters, linguists, and other researchers to think about means of dissemination, Archiving and contributing to the process of revitalizing the territory’s indigenous languages. In this regard, the translation of a sentence into 41 languages originating from Peru, in collaboration with official translators of the National Register of Interpreters and Translators of Indigenous Languages (RENITLI), generates a linguistic file, which is an echo of the struggle of indigenous peoples against linguistic hegemony. This proposal invites us to reflect on the presence of colonization today, manifested through the linguistic hegemony of the Castilian in this territory, which leads to the exclusion of voices originating from public life in the country and the loss of links with ancestral knowledge.