PERU, A JOURNEY IN TIME. SURPRISE THE BRITISH MUSEUM WITH AN INITIATIVE EXHIBITION.

Pot made of clay in the shape of a contortionist. Cupisnique, Peru, 1000 - 500 BC C. Photography: British Museum.



Painted tunic. From top to bottom, the bands represent feathers of the birds that inhabit the Amazon region, circles with possible Andean lagoons and the waves of the Pacific Ocean. Chancay, Peru, 1000 - 1470. Photography: British Museum.



Vessel with the figure of a native rowing a reed boat. Moche, Peru, 100 - 800 AD. C. Photography: British Museum.



Figure that represents a prisoner with the rope around his neck. Moche, Peru, 100 - 800 AD. C. Photography: British Museum.



Small representation of a flame made of gold. Inca, Peru, 1400 - 1532. Photography: British Museum.



Cecilia Pardo Grau

(Lima, 1975)


She is curator of the British Museum for the exhibition dedicated to Peru (2020-2022) and curatorial advisor of the Museum of Art of Lima-MALI (2020-2022)


She obtained a BA in Archeology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and a MA in Museum Studies from the Institute of Archeology, University College London, University of London. She was curator of collections and pre-Hispanic art at MALI (2006-2017) and deputy director of this institution between 2017 and 2019.


She has taught the Introduction to Archeology and Museology course at PUCP (2000-2009), has worked as coordinator of cultural heritage projects at the Telefónica Foundation (2000-2003) directing initiatives related to the cataloging and digitization of collections of Peruvian museums, and the publication of publications and multimedia CDs on pre-Columbian themes. She has participated in various curatorial and museum projects in museums in Peru and the United Kingdom. She has served as coordinator of the Department of Registration and Cataloging at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico.


As MALI curator, she was in charge of restructuring the Registry and Cataloging department, coordinating the project for the new permanent rooms, and curating the following projects: Portrait: Identity, memory and power, in co-curation with Natalia Majluf and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden (2007); El MALI: Forming Collections 2007-2008, in co-curation with Natalia Majluf (2009); From Cupisnique to the Incas. The art of the Jequetepeque valley (2009); Pre-Columbian Textiles in the MALI collection (2010-2011); as well as the itinerancy of the Art & Myth in Ancient Peru exhibition. The history of the Jequetepeque Valley, presented at the Americas Society in New York (2010); Modeling the World: Images of Pre-Columbian Architecture (2011-2012) in co-curation with José Canziani, Luis Jaime Castillo and Paulo Dam; Huarmey Castle. El mausoleo imperial wari, curator and co-editor of the accompanying publication (2014); Chavín (2015), Moche and her neighbors, in co-curation with Julio Rucabado (2016); Nasca, in co-curation with Peter Fux, and the tours at the Rietberg Museum, Zurich (2017), Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2018) and the Telefónica Foundation, in Madrid (2019); and Khipus (2020).

The exhibition is a success, for the visitors of this prestigious institution -in pre-pandemic times, about six million a year- and for the Peruvians who enjoy the echoes that arrive from London, just after its bicentennial as a republic and in full institutional political turmoil, with a president of the nation, Pedro Castillo, teacher and trade unionist, who surprised with his electoral victory last June and today seeks to stabilize this powerful country in pre-Columbian and viceregal times.


If we were to imagine a selection of archaic testimonies from that Andean country to be exhibited in the British Museum, the Inca culture would come to mind in the first place, but the exhibition goes much further, it extends over 3000 years - we would say from around 1500 BC, until the arrival of the Spaniards-, going to the towns that preceded them, among them the so-called Chavín, Paracas, Nasca, Moche, Wari and Chimú, inhabitants of a diverse territory that climbs above the 6000 meters high on the snowy peaks of the Andes, it goes deep into the Amazon jungle, runs through one of the roughest deserts in the universe and travels along the Pacific coast whose waters are lavish in food resources. Of course, the traces of the Incas are also in the exhibition, but it is worth understanding that they built their civilization in a very short period - their empire collapsed without reaching a century and a half of existence -, measured in the time of the human occupation in the Peruvian region, whose first steps are located beyond 15,000 years.


And it is striking that it was necessary to reach the third decade of the 21st century for the British Museum -one of the most important institutions in the world- to organize an exhibition dedicated to these cultures that left authentic treasures as testimony of their lives at its own headquarters. and deaths. (1) The exhibition script is the work of the Peruvian curator Cecilia Pardo Grau and her British counterpart Jago Cooper-curator of the Americas at the MB-, both engaged in a fantastic challenge: reflecting through a selection of objects -in their most preserved in the London institution - the complexity and wonders of these past South American cultures.


To learn about the details of the exhibition, we interviewed Cecilia Pardo Grau, who was selected by the host institution in the days prior to the arrival of Covid 19. “I traveled to London in February 2020 - I had studied there - and returned to Lima where I was working at the MALI (Lima Art Museum), to prepare everything and return to England in April, but the pandemic meant that we had to change what was planned; We started the work remotely, selecting the pieces preserved in the British Museum, although the collection was very little analyzed. I finally arrived in October, with the time very advanced. We had already developed a good part of the script - we had resolved that the Inca culture would have a lesser presence than expected - and in order for the sample to be representative, we incorporated a batch of pieces that were found in Peru, which traveled to be exhibited”.


“The room”, the Peruvian curator continues, “has almost 400 square meters and it was necessary to find those elements that would allow us a dialogue between Western and Andean times; that with a linear evolution towards progress, and that of the cultures represented, in a parallel, cyclical time, a continuous living, dying and being reborn. In addition, we wanted to address the legacy of those cultures in present-day Peru and put the millennial testimonies and their scientific interpretations in dialogue with the voices of the current inhabitants who continue these traditions. We see it in the production of textiles and also in agricultural work”.


An exhibition, a trip


The director of the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer, maintains that crossing the entrance doors to the institution, “is always taking the first step on a journey, and with this exhibition we invite visitors to travel through the history of one of the most captivating regions of the world. The scale of the generous loan of antique objects from museums in Peru is unprecedented and is a historic opportunity to see them here in the UK. The fascinating variety of material on display collectively challenges perceptions of how the world can be seen and understood”. Hartwig Fischer immediately thanked PROMPERU -the Peruvian Promotion Commission for Exports and Tourism (2) - for their support, which made it possible.


  • BACK
  • NEXT
  • Subscribe to our newsletter to be updated.

    Check our Newsletters