CAMBRIDGE, MASS.- Signal and Strata brings together the work of three Peruvian artists—Elena Damiani, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, and Ishmael Randall-Weeks—whose practices examine the complex entanglements of land, history, and extraction through materially rich, architecturally resonant, and often pre-colonial forms. The exhibition marks the first U.S. institutional presentation to bring these artists into direct dialogue, tracing connections across their investigations of geology, capitalism, mythology, and cultural memory.

Working across sculpture, installation, and photography, Elena Damiani explores archeological and archival systems as frameworks for understanding time and perception. Her works reconfigure stratigraphic and sedimentary structures, revealing how natural and human processes become mutually and vitally inscribed in the geological layers of land. Ximena Garrido-Lecca examines the social and environmental consequences of colonization and resource extraction in Peru, often employing copper, clay, and other locally sourced materials that carry histories of labor, tradition, craft, exploitation, as well as possibilities of transformation. Ishmael Randall-Weeks reassembles found and recycled debris—copper, cement, brick, rubber, and earth—into hybrid architectural forms through labor-intensive processes. Each embodies cycles of production and decay, while questioning promises of progress, urbanization, and global supply chains and material culture.

Together, their works consider the ways in which extraction—of minerals, data, images, and histories—shapes both the physical and psychic landscapes of the Andean region. Embedded in these practices are echoes of indigenous ritual and folklore, where the land is understood as a living entity and acts of making become gestures of renewal or resistance. While grounded in specific local geographies and histories, Signal and Strata also speaks to global conditions of environmental transformation and cultural displacement, inviting reflection on how systems of power and belief are built, eroded, and reimagined through matter itself.

This exhibition is organized by Kate McNamara, Interim John R. and Barbara Robinson Director and Danni Shen, Senior Curatorial and Public Programs Assistant.

ELENA DAMIANI (b. 1979, Lima, Peru) lives and works in Lima, Peru. Damiani has participated in multiple international biennales, including the Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2023), Cuenca Biennale (2018, 2016), Gwangju Biennale (2016), Venice Biennale, Vienna Biennale and IV Poly/Graphic San Juan Triennial (both 2015). Solo exhibitions include Americas Society New York (permanent installation, 2022), Museo de Arte de Contemporáneo, Lima (2022), Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk (2017), Museo Amparo, Puebla (2016), Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2015). She has participated in group exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museo De Arte Contemporáneo De Monterrey, Mexico, The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Mexico, and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (all 2023), among many others.

XIMENA GARRIDO-LECCA (b. 1980, Lima, Peru) lives and works between Mexico City and Lima. Recent solo exhibitions include Reverse Engineering at CAN Centre d’art Neuchâtel, Switzerland (2023), and Inflorescence at Portikus, Frankfurt (2022). Her works have also been featured in major international exhibitions such as the 2025 Sharjah Biennial; the 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale, India, and the 34th Bienal de São Paulo, and are included in public collections such as Tate Modern, London; Boros Collection, Berlin, Germany; Kadist Foundation, Paris/ San Francisco; The Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Argentina; and Museo de Arte de Lima, among others.

ISHMAEL RANDALL-WEEKS (b. 1976, Cusco, Peru) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Lima, Peru. His work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums, including Middlesbrough Institute of Modern of Art, England, United Kingdom; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lima, Peru; Spanish Culture Center of Buenos Aires (CCBBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina, among many others. His work has also been included in the Havana Biennial, the IX and the XIV Bienials de Cuenca, the 6th edition of (S) Files Biennial in El Museo del Barrio, New York and 2010 Greater New York and MoMA PS1, amongst others.