Los Angeles is about to be tied, gently, in knots of color and memory. The Museum of Contemporary Art presents Cecilia Vicuña: The Dream of Water: Quipu of Encounters Maricunga at MOCA Grand Avenue, on view from November 15, 2026, through June 6, 2027, at 250 South Grand Avenue.
The exhibition is one of two inaugural Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize presentations at MOCA this fall, alongside Julian Charrière’s Deep End, and both reflect the Prize’s commitment to artists working at the intersections of art, climate and environmental justice. Senior Curator José Luis Blondet oversees the Vicuña presentation.
The word quipu, pronounced kee-poo, comes from the Quechua word for “knot.” Made of colored, spun and plied thread, quipus were used for record keeping and for sending messages by runners throughout the Andean empire. Vicuña has reimagined that pre-Columbian system of non-writing through ritual acts that weave together the urban landscape, rivers and oceans, and people themselves, rebuilding a sense of unity and awareness of interconnectivity. As a poet, she is drawn less to the quipu’s archaeology than to its endless metaphorical power, and to memory itself: her engagement began in the early 1960s with a journal note, “the quipu that remembers nothing.”
It promises to be one of the most quietly moving museum visits of the season, and a beautiful reason to head to Grand Avenue this fall.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
