TEJER LO QUE NO SE VE
(Weaving What Cannot Be Seen)Lucianna's artistic practice emerges from a profound commitment to memory, the body, and the exposure of forms of violence that have been rendered invisible. Her work is rooted in a traumatic episode of Peru's recent history: the Reproductive Health and Family Planning Program implemented during Alberto Fujimori's regime (1995–2000). Framed as a strategy to eradicate poverty, the program resulted in a systematic policy of forced sterilization that affected more than 270,000 women, the majority of whom were Indigenous, rural, impoverished, and illiterate.
Lucianna addresses this history through a critical and deeply sensitive lens in her work Muy personal (Very Personal, 2024), a textile book that unravels the official discourse used to justify these practices as measures of development. Through thread, she constructs a narrative that reveals the human cost of these policies: the violation of women's autonomy, health, and fundamental rights. Rather than merely documenting these events, the work asks difficult questions: What is sacrificed in the name of progress? Who has the authority to decide over women's bodies?
Yet Lucianna's inquiry extends beyond recent history. Throughout her artistic practice, she has continually questioned what defines a woman. Her first textile book, Ninfas de MRKH (Nymphs of MRKH, 2016–2017), brings together testimonies from women living with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a congenital condition in which the uterus and part of the vagina do not fully develop. In this work, Lucianna confronts the social and biological imperative that equates womanhood with reproductive capacity. What happens when a body cannot conceive? When nature is perceived to have "failed"? Can one still be considered a woman outside the boundaries of this expectation?
During her residency at FAR, Lucianna expanded this line of inquiry through encounters, site visits, and conversations that encouraged her to rethink her textile books not only as archival devices but also as starting points for the expansion of her practice. In this phase, her research focused on four medical conditions associated with the inability to carry a pregnancy: Turner syndrome, uterine fibroids, MRKH syndrome, and uterine rupture. What these conditions share is that they are diagnosed through medical imaging technologies—ultrasounds and X-rays—devices that reveal what the naked eye cannot see, while simultaneously exposing what medical discourse categorizes, regulates, or pathologizes.
Working from these images, Lucianna constructs a new cartography of the body. She embroiders ultrasound scans, draws with thread, and transforms weaving into both a political and restorative act. Thread replaces ink, and embroidery becomes a tool for reflection, care, and the shared experience of time between body and memory.
What is presented today at FAR is not an exhibition in the conventional sense. It is a constellation of fragments: notes tucked between pages, remnants of medical records, handwritten prescriptions, loose sheets from an intimate book, pieces of an unfinished narrative. It is a map of what cannot be seen—the weight of the maternal mandate, institutional violence, religious tradition, and the right to bodily autonomy. Lucianna invites us to read between the threads, to imagine other ways of being a woman beyond reproductive expectations, grounded instead in autonomy while remaining deeply connected to memory.
FAR
Karime García and Juan David Medina
Buenos Aires, Argentina — May 30, 2025
STUDIO SHOOTS