MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- As a global society we find ourselves in a moment of transformation: rapidly developing technologies are altering how we live; disinformation fueled by social media is morphing our sense of reality; and divisive ideologies are fracturing our communities. Within this ongoing churn, contemporary artists are now emerging as potent interrogators of knowledge, ever-creating new methodologies for gathering, examining, and sharing information within the evolving genre of research-based art. On March 8, the Walker Art Center opened a compelling new exhibition that presents the work of 11 artists from across nine countries who make research an integral part of their practices. Titled Ways of Knowing, the exhibition invites consideration of contemporary arts’ critical role in the creation of knowledge. It will remain on view through September 7, 2025. 

Ways of Knowing includes works across a broad range of mediums, including drawing, photography, video, and large-scale installation. It features a new commission that includes both elements of installation and performance by Eduardo Navarro (b. 1979, Buenos Aires) as well as new and recent works by Iosu Aramburu (b. 1986, Lima, Peru), Sammy Baloji (b. 1978, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo), Anna Boghiguian (b. 1946, Cairo), Cabello/Carceller (b. 1963, Paris/b. 1964, Madrid), Chang Yuchen (b. 1989, Shanxi, China), Petrit Halilaj (b. 1986, Kostërrc [Skenderaj], Kosovo), Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, b. 1984, Ferndale, WA), Christine Howard Sandoval (enrolled member of Chalon, B. 1975, Anaheim, CA), Gala Porras-Kim (b. 1984, Bogotá), and Rose Salane (b. 1992, New York). The majority of works will be on view in the United States for the first time. 

The exhibition continues the Walker’s longstanding investment in thematic presentations that explore and give platform to emerging methodologies, artforms, and conceptual investigations as well as its ongoing support for early career artists. Ways of Knowing also marks the first major exhibition by Rosario Güiraldes since she joined the Walker as Curator of Visual Arts in 2023. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue that includes an essay by Güiraldes, a roundtable discussion featuring Güiraldes, art historian and critic Claire Bishop, artist Nicolás Guagnini, and curator and historian Cuauhtémoc Medina, as well as generously illustrated entries on each artist. 

“Research has become a fundamental element in certain artistic practices, especially as our world becomes more complicated and our notions of reality less fixed. Ways of Knowing prompts us to consider what happens when artists step into territories of knowledge production traditionally associated with disciplines like anthropology, science, or history, opening new possibilities for how knowledge can be understood, represented, and disseminated through contemporary art,” said Güiraldes. “To create the exhibition, we looked to the practices of artists, allowing for shared strategies to inform and construct the thematic framework. The result is an exhibition rich in ideas, experiences, and expressions that resonate deeply with the current moment.”

The featured artists engage with a vast range of subject matter, from the lives and afterlives of ordinary objects to the formation of gender identity, and to the connections between place, culture, and language. Regardless of their chosen topic, the artists in Ways of Knowing reject the conventional assumption of the researcher’s neutrality, opting instead to assemble information through different lenses that create new possibilities for understanding cultural artifacts and historical narratives. Works in the exhibition are organized loosely in three distinct yet overlapping thematic sections. 

Poetic Taxonomies: Some artists in the exhibition maintain an outward affinity toward taxonomies or historical methods of visual categorization that align similar characteristics. Here, however, the artists deploy this approach with a sense of irony and a keen understanding of the limitations of such practices. 

Among the artists in this section is Rose Salane, whose practice engages with the biographies of objects and introduces viewers to histories that while potentially minor within the scale of the world are nonetheless affecting. Ways of Knowing includes selections from her Confessions series (2023), which includes a set of photographs depicting small objects, such as bits of soil, stone, or marble, taken from the Archaeological Park of Pompeii alongside written letters by regretful visitors returning the stolen materials. While presenting the diptychs together does not necessarily reveal anything new about the objects, visitors, or Pompeii, they do offer an opportunity to reflect on human emotion, appreciation for a site of historical significance, and broader dialogues regarding reparations. Other artists in the section include Gala Porras-Kim, Chang Yuchen, and Iosu Aramburu, whose ongoing large-scale installation Atlas of Andean Modernism (2022-) creates a visual narrative of art history from the Andean region through more than 5,000 images. The Atlas, in its sheer volume, reveals communal biases and understudied or overlooked expressions and experiences, challenging the idea of art, history, or knowledge as fixed. 

Durational and Place-Based Knowledges: Other artists in the exhibition challenge or reject traditional research and organizational frameworks and practices, seeing them as fundamentally shaped by systems of oppression. They create artworks that propose new, sometimes confrontational, methods of creating and framing knowledge, working in particular to reflect marginalized perspectives and narratives. 

These artists include Sammy Baloji, who explores the erasure of Congolese culture and history in the colonial and postcolonial periods through photography and film. Baloji emphasizes resource extraction as a primary current driving colonial power, historically and into the present day. In the video Tales of the Copper Cross Garden: Episode I (2017), featured in Ways of Knowing, the artist juxtaposes the current industrial production of copper wire with a 1937 recording of the boys’ choir the Singers of Copper Cross. The work collapses time, reflecting on the interconnectedness of events and creating necessary nuance in our understanding of both history and current happenings. Additional artists in this section include Sky Hopinka, Anna Boghiguian, and Christine Howard Sandoval, whose large-scale drawings from the series A wall is a shadow on the land (2020–) explore the artist’s Chalon Ohlone ancestry through the 18th and 19th century Spanish missions established in California. The series examines the exploitation of Native knowledge and labor, while creating new space for remembrance. 

Parafictions: In the third section, artists employ fiction and imagination to create personal and informal archives, emphasizing collaborative efforts to embody and redefine different sources of knowledge. These artists challenge the partiality of existing archives and archival forms and leverage art as a critical pathway for constructing, holding, and expressing knowledge. 

Included in this section is Petrit Halilaj, whose immersive installation Very volcanic over this green feather (2021) is inspired by the drawings he made as a child during the Kosovo War. Some of the drawings captured the violence that he experienced firsthand, other drawings reflected scenes from news media, and yet others reflected pure fantasy. To create the work, Halilaj selected elements from his drawings, enlarged them, and printed them onto felt. These objects are suspended from the ceiling in horizontal planes across the gallery space, inviting visitors to experience the war through the eyes of a child. With each installation, Halilaji reimagines the configuration of elements to create new connections and meaning. The section also features Cabello/Carceller and Eduardo Navarro, who has been commissioned by the Walker to create a new work. Cloud Museum (2025) continues Navarro’s interest in engaging people with environmental forces and will be activated by participating dance students. The installation will involve physical objects, opportunities for improvisational movement, and an examination of the expression of clouds through drawing. 

“Ways of Knowing serves as a platform to introduce our audiences to a diverse range of talented artists, including many who have been less visible in the United States,” said Mary Ceruti, the Walker’s Executive Director. “The exhibition reveals a compelling spectrum of visions and approaches and encourages us to consider what art can teach us about knowledge—our relationships to information and how we come to know what we know. I look forward to engaging our audiences with these highly topical ideas.” 

Ways of Knowing is curated by Rosario Güiraldes, Curator, Visual Arts; with Brandon Eng, Curatorial Assistant, Visual Arts.