Eclipse de Kreeh: Archivo Selk’nam

Installation by Violeta Maluendres González
Opening: 22 January, 19:00
Exhibition Dates: 22 January – 6 February
Venue: Karne Kunst / Bardo Projektraum. Jessnerstraße 33, 10247 Berlin

About the Exhibition

What remains when history is reduced to fragments?

Eclipse de Kreeh: Archivo Selk’nam is an immersive installation that approaches memory as a living, unstable archive. Taking the work of anthropologist Anne Chapman as a starting point, the exhibition revisits the last voices, rituals, and cosmology of the Selk’nam people of Tierra del Fuego—while questioning how histories are constructed, translated, and erased.

The installation unfolds as an “archaeological office of memory,” where visitors are invited to move through documents, images, sounds, objects, and materials as active participants. Rather than presenting a fixed narrative, the exhibition encourages visitors to assemble, disassemble, and interpret fragments, becoming cultural detectives within a partial and mediated archive.

At its core, Eclipse de Kreeh: Archivo Selk’nam foregrounds a feminist and decolonial perspective. The project highlights the collaboration between Anne Chapman, Ángela Loij—translator and cultural mediator—and Lola Kiepja, the last Selk’nam shaman. Their alliance forms a constellation of care, translation, and resistance, challenging the authority of colonial archives and the systematic omission of Indigenous and female voices.

Through a series of interconnected stations—ranging from optical installations and participatory collages to sound environments and earth-based works—the exhibition explores how memory is shaped by perspective, power, and absence. Analog and digital technologies coexist with natural materials, emphasizing memory as something embodied, tactile, and continuously reconstructed.

Eclipse de Kreeh: Archivo Selk’nam does not seek to restore a complete past. Instead, it exposes the conditions of its fragmentation, inviting reflection on how colonial violence continues to shape what is remembered, what is silenced, and who is allowed to narrate history.

About the Artist

Violeta Maluendres González is an interdisciplinary artist and storyteller working with memory, archive, technology, and decolonial feminist perspectives. Since 2016, she has been developing the long-term project Eclipse de Kreeh, focused on the history of the Selk’nam people and the recovery of erased narratives through experimental, participatory formats. She is currently based in Berlin.

Visiting Information

Opening: Wednesday, 22 January, 19:00
Exhibition Dates: 22 January – 6 February
Opening Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 14:00–18:00
Venue: Karne Kunst / Bardo Projektraum. Jessnerstraße 33, 10247 Berlin
Complementary activities will be announced soon.

Team

Artist: Violeta Maluendres González
Curator: Carla Andrade
Installation Coordination: Daniela Gonzalez Bollozas
Gallery Assistant: Elisa Basilissi Lefebvre
Mediation: Alejandra Atalah
Artistic Director (Bardo Projektraum): Marcela Villanueva