Through a deeply rooted body of work in LatinAmerica, Miguel Ángel Ríos (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1943) combines a rigorously conceptual approach with a meticulously constructed aesthetic to question prevailing narratives and invite us to venture into the stories that have shaped our understanding of the Americas. His creative process involves deconstructing the logical coherence and orientation of colonial cartography and intertwining them with indigenous tradition through reflective rearrangements.

In this way, he offers the viewer a tangible expression of the “encounter of two worlds,” in which the historical merges with the cultural through narrative. As an exploration not only of geographical landscapes but also of the intricate interaction between cultures, traditions, and ideologies, by “unmapping” America, Miguel Ángel Ríos reinvents cartography and invites us to question and reimagine our understanding of history.

Since 1970, Ríos has created works on the concept of “Latin American,” using it as both an artistic strategy and a political problem. In the following decades, he created a series of maps, which he carefully folded and pleated by hand. With these, Ríos marked the fifth centenary of the “discovery” of America, pointing to power histories, the colonial experience, and referencing traditional indigenous arts in the Americas. Since the early 2000s, he has delved into the medium of video to create symbolic narratives about human experience, violence, and mortality.