Kauae Raro Research Collective

Artists with their hands in the earth from Lima, Peru:

Ofrenda receives us with Altar para Return (2025), a collaborative work by Aileen Gavonel and Irazema Vera. The piece moves the altar from the home realm into the gallery space, reclaiming popular spiritual traditions and remembering how handmade objects have historically accompanied rituals of care and memory.

Altar to Return is made up of small sculptures that refer to utility pottery, but which here become mysterious: duplicate female figures arranged in mirror, which seem to communicate telepathically, and a vase in the shape of a womb. Both pieces honor the feminine as a creative and container force. This is not, however, an essentialist gesture, but an acknowledgement that life is born and transformed into caring spaces.

At the center of the altar is a small vase called Encanto. From within them emerge voices that whisper and sing: “come back, come back.” This choral invocation brings together different beloved artists. The idea was born from the exercise Cantemos Juntxs: Voice Stretches to Treat Fear, developed within the framework of the project Habitables Worlds by Susie Quillinan. In that workshop space voice was used as a tool to heal fear. In Ofrenda it works like sound medicine: a call back that doesn’t pressurize, but accompanies… »

Florencia Portocarrero

and at .galeria

Cantemos juntxs y Vuelve
2024
Ceramic stoneware
37 × 27 × 12 cm

Container organ and return
2024
Ceramic stoneware
26 × 43 × 7 cm

Telepathy and come back
2024
Ceramic stoneware
38 × 27.5 × 11.5 cm

Charm remedy and coming back
2024
Ceramic stoneware
Sound on 4’ 59” loop
12.5 × 10 cm