Santiago Yahuarcani: The Beginning of Knowledge

Working from a remote Amazonia town in northern Peru, Santiago Yahuarcani creates large-scale, narrative rich paintings exploring the relationship between the Uitoto people and the natural world. Using natural pigments and materials, Yahuarcani’s work exists outside of Western art history – instead harnessing the memories, history and wisdom of his ancestors, the sacred knowledge of medicinal plants, the sounds of the jungle, and Uitoto myths that explain the multiple configurations of the universe.

Especially urgent in its retelling of the colonial extraction of natural resources and the enslavement of the Uitoto people during the Peruvian rubber boom, Yahuarcani’s art can be understood as an act of education and protest, vividly illustrating the natural scenery that once was. He explores the roots of the climate catastrophe in the long history of colonial dispossession, the eradication of spiritual worlds – and the resulting disconnection from the environment. His paintings offer profound reflections on the Uitoto people past and present, from which we have so much to learn.

Building on his presentation at the 60th Venice Biennale, The Beginning of Knowledge features more than 25 paintings from 2010 to the present, including new work and international loans.

Presented by the Whitworth as part of MIF25, this exhibition encourages us to consider alternative ways of thinking, learning, and living together with the natural world.