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Seba Calfuqueo, Cautin exhibition

Museo Thyssen-BornemiszaPaseo del Prado

Seba Calfuqueo. Cautin

Now showing6 October 2026 – 17 January 2027€14

Mapuche artist Seba Calfuqueos first European solo show, exploring the Cautin River through ceramics, video and embroidered paintings.

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In a 3D animation, the artist's mother, Carmen, travels the Cautín River with whales beside her: Trempulkawe, beings from Mapuche tradition that carry souls after death. Seba Calfuqueo, a Mapuche artist born in 1991, made the 25-plus works new for her first solo show in Europe.

You walk it against the current, from the Pacific up to the river's source at the Lonquimay volcano, and the route ends on a video of the artist curled in a fetal position. On the way are twelve glazed ceramics crossing a Mapuche vessel, the metawe, with river animals such as Darwin's frog, embroidered paintings you can see from both sides, and a six-metre mural. The rooms are done in kalfü, the Mapuche sacred blue.

It fills the temporary rooms on level -1. Entry is free on Mondays 12:00 to 16:00 and Saturdays 21:00 to 23:00, with night walkthroughs on 24 October and 21 November. Madrid's Manzanares is mostly famous for being small; this river gets followed from the sea to a volcano.

Look for

  • Ngill Chenmaiwe

    Look for the 3D animation in which Carmen, the artist's mother, crosses the river escorted by Trempulkawe, the whales that carry souls after death.

  • Cautinazo, the six-metre mural

    Acrylic and Chinese ink on cotton, 600 by 170 cm, peopled with figures from the Mapuche land recoveries of 1968 to 1973.

  • The twelve river-animal vessels

    Large ceramics that fuse the metawe, a traditional Mapuche jug, with Cautín species such as Darwin's frog and the huillín river otter.

  • Ngenko, Trucha arcoíris

    A rainbow trout in ceramic glazed blue, finished with mother-of-pearl, copper, gold and silver lustre.

  • The two-sided embroidered paintings

    Acrylic paintings of the territory with embroidery stitched over them, hung so you can walk round and see both faces.

Good for

  • Evening Visits
  • Locals Who've Seen It All
  • Nerding Out

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