Cecilia Vicuña, Foraging Quipu, 2025. Installation view from Cecilia Vicuña. Reverse Migration, a Poetic Journey, 2025-2026, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. © the artist. Photography by Ros Kavanagh
Cecilia Vicuña, Foraging Quipu, 2025. Installation view from Cecilia Vicuña. Reverse Migration, a Poetic Journey, 2025-2026, at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. © the artist. Photography by Ros Kavanagh
Free entry
7 Oct 2026 - 14 Feb 2027
Gallery 4
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our events as accessible as possible for every audience member. Please contact infodesk@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
Information about access on site at the gallery is available here: https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/visit/access/
This includes information about Lift access; Borrowing wheelchairs & seating; Assistance Animals; Parking; Toilets and baby care facilities; Blind & Partially Sighted Visitors; Subtitles and transcripts; British Sign Language (BSL) and hearing induction loops; Deaf Messaging Service (DMS).
Created through a public call for contributions, Foraging Quipu is a large-scale participatory installation by Cecilia Vicuña, bringing together plant matter, found objects and materials gathered by local communities.
First realised at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin in 2025, the installation will be recreated at Whitechapel Gallery through a new public invitation to collect and contribute materials. Visitors are invited to gather dry plant matter and lightweight debris from their surroundings, creating a collective archive of ecological traces, chance encounters and personal acts of attention. The resulting installation will weave together these contributions into a suspended quipu, a form inspired by the ancient Andean system of knotted cords used for recording and communication.
Throughout her practice, Vicuña has explored the relationships between people, place, memory and the natural world. Foraging Quipu extends this approach by transforming everyday acts of collecting into a shared artistic gesture, bringing together materials shaped by different environments and histories. Branches, seeds, roots, fungi, textiles, fragments of wood, plastics and other found objects coexist within the work, creating a poetic assembly that reflects both ecological interdependence and human responsibility towards the environments we inhabit.
Foraging Quipu is presented alongside Cecilia Vicuña: Living Threads, the artist’s first major UK survey exhibition.
https://www.ceciliavicuna.com/biography
Cecilia Vicuña: Living Threads has been principally and generously supported by The Colwinston Charitable Trust.
Principal supporter:
The Colwinston Charitable Trust 30th Anniversary Fund
With support from: Embassy of Chile in the UK
Cecilia Vicuña Exhibition Circle and Patrons: Xavier Hufkens, Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, London, Soliman Travel. Jane Soliman, Juliana Fortunato Wates, Zarela Feeney, Mareida Restaurant
