Over her forty years as a multidisciplinary artist, María Magdalena Campos-Pons has built works from autobiographical narratives that engage with her Cuban ancestry, marked by Hispanic, Chinese, and African heritage. Her intersectionality becomes a creative force to represent multiple experiences and realities. As Marisa Del Toro states in this Bienal’s catalog, “to say the unspeakable, to witness, and to contemplate truth lie at the center of the artist’s trajectory.”
The space dedicated to Campos-Pons is organized as a large circle seven meters in diameter. Translucent fabrics printed with floral patterns descend from the ceiling in concentric rings, creating overlays of color and transparency. At the center rises Macuto (2025), a painted metal sculpture in warm shades of red, orange, and yellow, measuring 140 centimeters tall by 35 wide. Inspired by the form of a tropical heliconia, the piece functions as the ritual axis of the space, around which the audience may sit. Periodically, diffusers release fragrances of herbs and spices associated with healing practices, while speakers project songs, voices, and Afro-diasporic rhythms, reinforcing the communal and spiritual dimensions of the work.
The installation investigates the relationship between materiality and spirituality, ancestral wisdom, the nature of time, and the potential of collective healing practices. Structured as a multisensory experience—with olfactory, sonic, tactile, gustatory, and performative stimuli—it dissolves boundaries between past, present, and future.
On the wall surrounding the nucleus, six ink-and-watercolor works on paper (160 x 109 cm each) expand the spiritual atmosphere of the space. Among them, Mama (2025) stands out, depicting a female figure with raised arms, enveloped in blue waves and a celestial halo, merging Catholic and Yoruba references to evoke motherhood, protection, and spiritual power. In Guided by the Stars (2025), silhouettes in shades of blue, violet, and ocher are traversed by luminous points reminiscent of constellations, a metaphor for the diasporic experience guided by the cosmos. The remaining works—OluFunKe 1 and 2, Osmare, and Celestial Warrior—complete the ensemble, bringing symbols of strength, ancestry, and resistance.
Campos-Pons transforms the exhibition space into a portal of spiritual communion, where painting, sculpture, sound, and aroma intertwine to create a place of healing, sharing, and contemplation. As Del Toro further notes, “Campos-Pons is an artist who channels the energy of the Black body, of lived experiences and realities, as a form of visual communication, carrying information from the past and the present, but, above all, as a tribute to future times and the possibilities of human existence.”