Contemporary Art Laboratory in Lima
Opening
Thursday, March 5, 2026
19h
March 5, 2026 – May 9, 2026
proyectoamil
Lima
proyectoamil, together with artists Martin Gustavsson and Rodrigo Gómez Olivos, are pleased to invite you to the exhibition HACIENDO CONTEXTO: Colorismos. This ninth edition opens on March 5, 2026 at proyectoamil in Barranco and brings together the artists Fabiola Adama, Juan Pablo Bernuy, Juan Carlos Catacora Gutarra, Ximena Ferrer Pizarro, André Daza, Melen, Sergio Pacheco, Wálther Sanchez, and Kinshiro Shimura.
As children, many of us encountered boxes of colored crayons that included a shade labeled “skin color.” Far from neutral, this designation operated as an early lesson in representation: a single hue stood in for “the human,” while other bodies were rendered deviation or excess. Such chromatic hierarchies have long structured racial imaginaries and aesthetic canons alike.
In Peru, since the sixteenth century, visual culture has participated in the production and legitimation of social stratification. Colonial image regimes not only reflected racial classifications but naturalized them, embedding distinctions of color into religious iconography, portraiture, and systems of value. Color became both material and metaphor—an index of difference and a mechanism of power.
Colorismos examines how these dynamics persist within contemporary visual culture. Through painting, installation, and research-based practices, the participating artists interrogate the moral, political, and symbolic weight attributed to color. Does color still carry an ethical charge? How do aesthetic traditions continue to authorize structures of exclusion? And what forms of subjectivity become possible when chromatic hierarchies are unsettled?
MAKING CONTEXT
Since 2016, proyectoamil, in collaboration with Rodrigo Gómez Olivos (Chile, 1986) and Martín Gustavsson (Sweden, 1964), has led Making Context, a collaborative contemporary art laboratory. In a country where opportunities for education in contemporary art are limited, the program fosters a sustained practice grounded in cooperation, reflection, and making among its participants. Through a nationwide open call, it brings together students, emerging artists, and self-taught practitioners from diverse backgrounds.
