Cecilia Vicuña: Quipu of Encounters: The Dream of Water

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA)Downtown

Cecilia Vicuña: The Dream of Water: Quipu of Encounters Maricunga

Upcoming15 November 2026 – 6 June 2027Free

A new Schmidt Prize commission by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña: a collaborative 'quipu of encounters' on the water crisis, linking communities in Chile and LA.

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On now All of November 2026

Preview: written before the show opened

In MOCA's tallest gallery you have to look up. Parina Quipu (2026) hangs there: unspun wool sheared by artisans around Cauquenes in southern Chile, dyed mostly the pink of the parina, the Andean flamingo, with smaller runs of yellow, green and purple.

The flamingos nest on the Maricunga Salt Flats in the southern Atacama, ancestral land of the Colla people, where water-hungry lithium mining strains a scarce supply. Next door, a five-channel video from Vicuña's two trips there moves from dusk to dawn and records two rituals she held with scientists, filmmakers and Colla community members. Cosmo Sheldrake's sound poem for the show mixes underwater recordings, cosmic radio waves and ancestral Andean instruments.

General admission is free, with reservations recommended, and the museum stays open until 8pm on one Thursday a month. Vicuña talks with UCLA's Elizabeth DeLoughrey at 3pm on opening day, and the LA half of the project, a quipu gathering with water defenders from across the basin, follows in spring 2027.

Editor's pick

Flamingo-pink unspun wool hangs in MOCA's tallest gallery. Vicuña's quipu, the Andean knotted record, is about water, made with communities in Chile and Los Angeles, and comes with a five-channel video of Colla rituals in the Atacama.

Look for

Parina Quipu (2026)
A hanging quipu of naturally dyed, unspun wool in flamingo pink, threaded with yellow, green, orange, purple, black, brown and gray, suspended in MOCA's tallest gallery.
Salar de Maricunga Quipu de Encuentro (2026)
Five video channels filmed on the Atacama salt flats in December 2025 and May 2026, running from dusk to dawn through microorganisms, landscapes, wildlife and two rituals with the Colla community.
Canto de Maricunga (2026)
Cosmo Sheldrake's polyphonic sound poem layers underwater sound, cosmic radio waves, the ensemble La Chimuchina on ancestral Andean instruments, and Vicuña's own chants.