Choreography of the Imagination

Cecilia Brunson Projects is pleased to present 'Choreography of the Imagination', the gallery’s second exhibition with Claudia Alarcón & Silät, a collective of over one hundred women weavers from the indigenous Wichí communities of northern Salta, Argentina. Their textiles, celebrated in the 2024 Venice Biennale, converge an ancestral geometric language with references to stories and dreams. They are woven from the hand-spun fibres of the native chaguar plant, a material and practice deeply rooted in Wichí culture, and a vital channel of non-verbal expression: the weavings communicate unspoken thoughts, the messages found within dreams and subconscious intuition.

Claudia Alarcón & Silät’s weavings form a meaningful contribution to the rich tradition of geometric abstraction in South America, and to the strand of art history that includes Anni and Josef Albers’ exploration of pre-Hispanic South American textiles. Anni Albers held chaguar textiles from Salta in her personal collection, from which she extracted geometric principles and weaving techniques as she developed her own practice, and featured the work in her seminal volume 'On Weaving' (1965).

Featuring a new body of work, 'Choreography of the Imagination' is the result of Claudia Alarcón’s ongoing interrogation into Anni Albers, and the artists’ interactions with the textile traditions of Salta, nearly 70 years apart. Opening their practice to the influence of Albers’ pioneering work in the textile discipline, Claudia Alarcón & Silät invite critical reflection on the flow of influence and the enduring fascination with indigenous visual cultures. Embracing and nurturing their ambivalent and indirect relationship with Albers, Claudia Alarcón & Silät celebrate the habitual return to pre-Columbian geometries as fertile ground for experimentation, in resistance to viewing these as static and anonymous traditions.

'Choreography of the Imagination' coincides with the artist’s first solo institutional exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex (opening 14 June, 2025).