The economy of Peru’s Sacred Valley has long been entwined with the seasons. Rural communities typically grow crops and raise livestock to sustain themselves and to barter with others, a process that necessitates an attunement with nature, its cycles, and how these patterns influence self-sufficiency.

This is particularly true for the Quechua communities, Indigenous peoples who have long worked for subsistence rather than state currencies. In recent years, health clinics, schools, markets, and transportation requiring residents to use cash have slowly eroded this way of life. Today, many Quechua men leave their communities to work in tourism, which offers an income and the opportunity to learn Spanish. Conversely, women often remain at home to care for children and farms, making them dependent on support from their partners and family members.

In 2009, the nonprofit Awamaki formed to aid communities around Ollantaytambo, Cusco, as they navigated this change. U.S.-based Kennedy Leavens and Miguel Galdo, of Peru, had worked together previously at a similar organization supporting 10 women weavers from Patacancha. When that project shuddered, the two decided to found Awamaki to maintain their support.

The nonprofit grew quickly, and today, it assists nine cooperatives, comprising 174 artisans and community members who work across craft and tourism. With collaboration at its core, Awamaki prides itself on sustainability and focuses on broadening its partners’ access to a diverse array of markets and economic opportunities.

In addition to financial changes, the climate crisis is rapidly transforming the ways of the Sacred Valley, which faces disproportionate impacts as glaciers melt and the water supply dwindles. “The shift towards having personal income, for our artisan partners, is not about replacing traditional livelihoods, but about widening the economic ground beneath them so they can move their families towards prosperity and build resiliency to the effects of climate change, all without leaving the community or traditional ways of life,” the nonprofit tells us.

Partnering with Awamaki allows cooperative members to focus on traditional spinning, dyeing, and weaving traditions, while the nonprofit offers structural support in selling their goods and coordinating tourism. Carving through the terrain north of Cusco, the Andean highlands were once home to the Incans and still hold traces of the ancient empire, like the historic city of Machu Picchu, which continues to attract around one million people from around the globe each year. For many years, the organization says, visitors would arrive in villages without prior notice, and the women would halt their work to meet tourists and hopefully, sell a piece.

And of course, this way of making is demanding, as women not only weave, but also raise alpacas, shear their wool, and spin and dye the soft fibers into yarn. “Before weaving, I have to wash my hands carefully so the wool doesn’t get damaged. It requires attention and care,” Ricardina, an Awamaki member from the Cusci Qoyllur cooperative, tells us. “Sometimes I can weave more, sometimes less. It depends on time, on my children, on everything else I have to do.”

Today, Awamaki helps to coordinate tourism and provide compensation for visits. This includes programs like Murmur Ring’s immersion, which will bring a group of creatives to the region this June. “Our role is to create opportunities that can be compatible with cultural continuity, if that is what communities themselves want,” they say, adding:

For women, without personal income, everyday decisions can feel distant. Paying for school supplies, buying medicine, covering transportation costs, buying food to supplement the limited traditional crops that grow at high altitude–all of these depend on uncertain flows of money and shifting household dynamics. As climate patterns grow more erratic, with harsher frosts, longer dry spells, and thinning pasture, even the agricultural base families rely on has become less predictable, deepening that sense of financial fragility.

This regular support has simultaneously buoyed many women to greater financial independence and helped retain their way of life. “When new artisans join a cooperative, they are typically mentored by other women in their own community. Cultural knowledge remains community-held and community-led,” the nonprofit shares.

“In my family, we make decisions together—about how to earn and how to move forward,” Daniela, a weaver from the Puskariy Tika cooperative, says. “Through this work, we are able to keep going and improve our lives little by little.”

Nadia, of the Rumia cooperative, echoes this sentiment. “Being part of Awamaki changed things for us. Now we have a steady income, and that allows us to keep weaving,” she says. “In our community, it’s not always easy. Some people say, ‘Why do you weave?’ But they don’t understand this work… We also teach our children to care for the environment, to grow things, to respect the land. That’s part of our work, too.”

To learn more about the women and support their work, visit Awamaki’s website.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article How One Cooperative Champions the Quechua Weavers of Peru’s Sacred Valley appeared first on Colossal.

From April 9 to 12, EXPO CHICAGO returns to Navy Pier, hosting hundreds of galleries, site-specific projects, talks, and multi-disciplinary programming both downtown and across the city. This week is one of the most exciting times for the Chicago-area art scene, and we’re excited to share our annual preview of what we’re most looking forward to!

1. Aliza Nisenbaum at Anton Kern and Regan Projects

Presented by Anton Kern and Regan Projects, Aliza Nisenbaum’s vibrant portraiture portrays her subjects in bold chromatics. Nisenbaum’s smaller-scale works presented at the fair echo one of her larger projects: a celebratory mural titled “Reading Circles/ Weaving Dreams/ Seeding Futures” created for the Obama Presidential Center.

2. Tawny Chatmon at Galerie Myrtis

We’re always excited for the opportunity to see Tawny Chatmon’s portraits up close. Galerie Myrtis will be presenting some of the artist’s newer works, which continue her interest in melding craft techniques with photography. Rather than gold leaf, though, Chatmon embroiders various motifs onto her portraits.

3. Maya Fuji at Charlie James

Referencing a genre of manga popular in the mid-2000s, Maya Fuji’s Slice of Life peers into the everyday activities of her young characters. Lounging, petting a napping cat, and getting ready for the evening take center stage in these vibrant yet calm paintings.

4. LaKela Brown at 56 Henry

LaKela Brown has traded in her stark white paint for another monochromatic palette, coating her polyurethane sculptures in black. For her solo presentation with 56 Henry, the artist explores ethnobotany and Black life in America through renditions of collard greens, tobacco, corn, chicken wings, and more.

5. Gerard Mas at Ting Ting Art Space

Longtime Colossal readers will likely recognize this cheeky figure as one of Gerard Mas’ brazen busts. For the past few years, the Barcelona-based artist has been taking a playful, contemporary approach to sculpture, casting spirited women in a variety of witty roles.

6. Rhama Lhoussig at dmincubator

Merging abstraction and magical realism, Rhama Lhoussig paints vivid domestic scenes in which a recurring figure amuses herself with stuffed bears, flowers, toy blocks, and more. Crayon scribbles and crude line drawings fill the surrounding negative space, firmly placing the works in a dynamic moment of creativity.

7. Dee Clements with Mindy Solomon

Chicago’s own Dee Clements presents a suite of still-life paintings framed in hand-woven frames, alongside mixed-media sculpture and abstract tapestries.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article 7 Artists We’re Excited to See at EXPO CHICAGO 2026 appeared first on Colossal.

A muscular Englishman in a khaki kilt and black beret hops atop the edge of an old well clad in traditional Spanish tile, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows in what can only be called an act of bravery.  High winds and rain pelt a group of visitors from all directions, and yet, this charismatic performer stands tall above the cobblestone to announce that he’s been living on this vacant island for nearly two centuries. He’s here to give us a tour.

“This has been my home for 174 years,” the man says, introducing himself as Captain Horatio Hollingwood. “I arrived in command of a well-known British merchant ship, responsible for transporting goods of every sort. But alongside grain, wool, and oil, there travelled with us certain rather unwelcome companions—terrible diseases. We stopped here for a sanitary inspection. And from here, I never left.”

As our group endures the Balearic Islands’ mercurial spring weather and shivers among towering stone walls and outbuildings, this exuberant actor introduces us to the Lazaretto of Mahón, an 18th-century fortress and infirmary that once housed merchants, shipping crews, and any travelers seeking entry to Spain. His ability to rouse a group of studio artists into the turbulent outdoors is a fitting introduction to the activities of the week ahead. Alongside nearly 80 others from Slovakia to Argentina, Washington D.C. to Melbourne, we’re here on this small, uninhabited island for Quarantine, a residency-style program conceived by artist Carles Gomila, who is determined to help artists break free from creative blocks while giving them permission to fail, discover, iterate, and hopefully, discover something new about themselves. 

For seven days, participants follow a rigorous schedule, arriving by boat on the island by 8:30 a.m. and leaving no earlier than 9:30 p.m. Their days are filled with talks, workshops, and meetings with invited artists who serve as mentors, the schedule of which isn’t shared in advance. Phones, laptops, and any device with an internet connection are banned, and there’s no option to retreat to a hotel bed or wander off for an afternoon. Such a demanding and purposefully opaque schedule invites artists to settle into discomfort, abandon expectations, and confront the insecurities and anxieties capable of stifling their best work. The theme of this edition is Tears in Rain, which takes its name from the iconic monologue at the end of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.

“What I wish now is to share with you the story of the people who lived here over the past centuries,” the actor continues. “Your quarantine, unlike theirs, is not compulsory. You have chosen to be here, to experience something meaningful in the way you live your lives and understand your creative process. This is a space and a time for transformation. Some passed here from life into death. Yours is a passage from blockage into freedom. Follow me.”

Getting to the island is no small feat—our journey from Chicago took two days and required three flights, a car trip, a 15-minute walk, and a short boat ride—and there’s no open, public access to the lazaretto. Given its remote location and secret programming, Quarantine asks interested artists to apply on a true leap of faith, one that many describe as the first moment they had to relinquish control and believe the bold claims the program boasts. Testimonials include lofty statements about the organizers “minting a legion for the revolution” and how participants feel “like my insides have been blown out.” Some people even get the program’s tally logo tattooed, and many have returned for multiple visits.

If you’re thinking this sounds like a cult, you’re not alone. When Quarantine’s organizers invited us to observe the April 2026 edition, we were skeptical, and so were the friends and colleagues with whom we shared our plans. As it turns out, many of the participants had similar reservations, which we learned when we landed in Menorca and met an artist at baggage claim. (In keeping with the spirit of Quarantine and the idea that what happens on the island stays on the island, we’re only sharing information about participants anonymously.) He was coming from Los Angeles and first encountered the program through one of the session’s mentors, Yuko Shimizu, whom he’d long admired and previously collaborated with. Lured by the opportunity to untether from daily life and connect with professional artists, he hoped to reinvigorate his practice and figure out how to take the next step, something former Quarantine participants lauded and that he hoped he could access, too. Was it a cult, though? None of us was sure.

From the 18th to 20th century, the Spanish government required all travelers, no matter their origin, to sequester on the island for 40 days or if they fell ill, longer. These groups were cordoned off by their presumed and actual illnesses, and about five percent died during their stay, succumbing to infectious diseases like the Bubonic Plague and Yellow Fever. Today, the double-walled sanatorium is mid-restoration as the local government repairs crumbling limestone halls and terracotta walkways and trims back an abundance of thistles. Along with a handful of loquacious peacocks whose eerie calls echoed across the island, just a skeleton grounds crew and the occasional tour group occupy the island with any regularity.

Quarantine is one of two recurring events held on the lazaretto, with weeklong editions each April and October that are supported by the local government and local tourism organization, Fundació Foment del Turisme de Menorca. Nearly everything needed for the program must be loaded onto boats and carried to the island for every edition, and a local caterer packs food for 80 and traverses the harbor each lunch and dinner. Enormous musical instruments like the bilas—a rare, standing contraption of flat bells conceived by Russian Alexander Zhikharev—even make their way over for live, outdoor performances.

A sort of mystical bootcamp for artists, Quarantine is both intensely communal and unabashedly introspective. Gomila designs the workshop sessions, known as the “Art Lab,” to tap into as many emotions and responses as possible, often frustration, confusion, and eventually, clarity. Many incorporate music, and almost all center on life drawing, whether through self-portraiture or enthusiastic models who embrace the spirit of the project as much as the participants. They don costumes, hold sabres as props, and accessorize to an outlandish extent. Models are invited to share in the creative process, too, and as one tells us one evening over glasses of Cava, the program allows her to reconnect with the self she doesn’t always encounter in her life as an architect.

Everyone we meet at Quarantine echoes this sentiment, whether they’re full-time artists or not. There’s a young father whose work at a video game design studio is forcing him to rely more and more on A.I. A fine art educator laments the corporatization of her position as a faculty member at a for-profit university. And countless others who work in tech, finance, government, design, and illustration have ventured to the Mediterranean to reclaim focus, hone their voice, and if they’re lucky, make something that excites them.

The accomplished group of mentors doesn’t hurt either. April’s edition included Shimizu, Martin Wittfooth, Mu Pan, Phil Hale, Yulia Bas, Sean Layh, and Adam Miller, while past sessions featured Miles Johnston, Jeremy Mann, and Nicolás Uribe, to name a few. Mentors each present a morning masterclass on a wide range of topics, from Wittfooth’s concept of art as a “spirit artifact” to Shimizu’s courage in changing careers after a decade in a corporate job. Layh shares his story of picking up his paintbrush for the first time in more than a decade to re-learn his abilities over two and a half years on a single canvas (last month he won an Archibald Prize). Participants also receive one-on-one sessions with three mentors, in which no topics are off limits. They can ask for guidance in developing a particular technique, although most choose to utilize their 45-minute sessions to chat about more personal problems they’ve both faced and connect about what it means to be an artist in today’s world. 

This equalizing ethos is the foundation of Quarantine. When participants complete an exercise, all work is displayed on a central table, and if they’d like, they can share something with the group. There’s no critique, no comparison, and no need to explain why they made the decisions they did. The focus instead is on the process, on seizing moments of low-risk spontaneity. Experimentation and abandoning patterns that no longer serve their creativity are encouraged, along with developing practices to work through frustrations and insecurities. The wide range of skills is liberating: many artists have worked full-time for more than a decade, while others are painting with oils for the very first time.

“What happens here is so psychological,” shares one participant from Argentina who heard about Quarantine by following Layh. “Because it’s all so mysterious, I was worried it was going to be cheesy, but I’ve cried three times this week.”

On the final day, after participants have painted and sketched for dozens of hours, been subjected to creative exercises they hope to never encounter again and others they will gladly replicate at home, and let themselves be vulnerable in a way that rarely happens outside a therapist’s office, what seems to stand out is the camaraderie and an overwhelming sense of belonging. In comparison to the eager anxieties of the first day, the group has settled into a shared clarity, knowing not to fear mistakes and feeling a new sense of kinship among like-minded peers. They pair off to get coffee, encourage one another to try a strange technique, and make plans to meet up once they return home. We were told that WhatsApp group chats from previous editions continue to this day. A large contingent from a previous year also wants to return en masse. 

The last evening under a star-studded sky, unusually visible to us city dwellers, a fire pit appeared adjacent to the well that the Englishman jumped atop on day one. All 80 of us gathered around, and one mentor, Bas, kicked us off. In her hands were an old letter that once held significant weight in her life and a work on paper. She walked over to the fire and tossed both in, then asked everyone else to do the same. 

As the fire pit grew so full of paintings and drawings and sketches and notes that pieces spilled onto the cobblestone, the communal sense of catharsis and release was palpable. Artists danced hand in hand, cried, hugged, and stood solemnly watching their breakthroughs crumble into ash. The idea, of course, was that these material objects–these “spirit artifacts” in Wittfooth’s parlance–were just that: artifacts. Artworks made on the island were both irreplaceable and irrelevant, as the program had already built up a herd immunity to any sense of assuredness or control. What Quarantine offers instead is a shared pathology, one that focuses not on remedying the symptoms of creative blocks or failures but rather zeroes in on the underlying cause.

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Joy Machine is pleased to present Feel Free, a group exhibition featuring new works by Rachel Hayden, Paulina Ho, Hanna Lee Joshi, and Jeremy Miranda. The opening reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on May 15, 2026.

Attempting to create order and find clarity amid chaos is human instinct. Since time immemorial, we’ve endeavored to make sense of a world in which reason and certainty are never assured. Change, as the saying goes, is the only constant, which means notions of autonomy or control are a subjective fantasy rather than a concrete reality. In Feel Free, we witness four artists grappling with this enduring paradox. Each surrenders to the inevitability of change and focuses on the small instances of understanding that, for a brief moment, allow us to believe we’re closer to figuring it out.

Hayden is known for her uncanny compositions that infuse flowers, plants, and insects with human emotion, often those that are unsightly or difficult to voice. She’s described her work as a way “to take control” amid situations that are so often out of our hands. For this exhibition, Hayden subsumes fruit and figures with the checkerboard pattern of a picnic blanket, utilizing color to make one indistinguishable from the other. As ants crawl along a character’s face in the shape of perfectly arched brows, the artist gestures toward the brief intervals when disparate components align, creating an uncanny harmony.

Blending gouache and colored pencil into textured gradients, Joshi similarly reflects inarticulable experiences through her signature nude figures. In the bold “Held like a flower,” the artist presents an anonymous woman with a mass of black hair as she peers down at a single flower. The thin vines mimic the gestural qualities of her fingers, suggesting an affinity between the two.

Typically working in controlled acrylic on canvas, Ho shifts to textiles sourced from a thrift shop, rendering soft landscapes with Japanese indigo. This new direction emerged from an artist residency in Joseph, Oregon, following a trip to Andalusia, where she found inspiration in the cream-and-blue Moorish architecture. Frayed edges and bold gradients capture both movement and evolution, invoking a sense of the undone and the cyclical processes that often pattern our lives.

Miranda, too, captures singular moments of impermanence. There’s a stock pot atop a roaring flame, a bundle of plump white asparagus bound by bands, and an antique ceramic sink unadorned by backsplash or countertop. To create his painterly compositions, Miranda incorporates a wet-sanding process that reveals how “the painting has lived.” Acknowledging that his own desires are not the sole factors in an artwork’s creation, he surrenders to the slippery qualities of memory and paint itself. 

Feel Free is on view from May 15 to June 27, 2026.

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