SENSORIAL FUSION: Relationship Art and Architecture by the New York Latin American Art Triennial

Opening Day: November 13 | 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Exhibition on view November 13, 2025 – January 11, 2026
Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art at Snug Harbor (Buildings C and G), Gallery G

Latin American architecture is a vibrant testament to the region’s rich history, diverse cultures, and evolving landscapes. From Mexico to Argentina and across the Caribbean, it weaves together indigenous traditions, colonial influences, and modernist innovation. In recent years, cities such as Medellín, Santiago de Chile, Lima, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Mexico City have emerged as epicenters of groundbreaking architectural experimentation. These structures stand as living chronicles of regional identity, harmonizing nature, tradition, and modernity while preserving cultural heritage.

Contemporary art and modern architecture arose from a shared aspiration: the moral and material reconstruction of societies scarred by conflict. Together, they serve as powerful tools in shaping collective identity, reinforcing the bond between urban spaces and their inhabitants. By merging artistic expression with architectural form, NYLAAT 2025 reimagines environments that evoke emotional resonance, community, and cultural continuity—transcending mere function and technique. For generations, artists have documented the shifting contours of cities and domestic life—capturing both the vitality and alienation of urban density. In recent decades, creative discourse has expanded to address pressing global concerns: climate change, gentrification, migration, and globalization. NYLAAT 2025 invites audiences to engage with these themes through a lens of Latin American innovation, where art and architecture converge to reimagine the future.

UNROOTED FORESTS: ECOLOGY, MEMORY, AND RECIPROCITY IN TATIANA AROCHA’S PRACTICE
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BOSQUES SIN RAÍCES: ECOLOGÍA, MEMORIA Y RECIPROCIDAD EN LA PRÁCTICA DE TATIANA AROCHA

Date/Fecha: December 3, 2025
Time/Hora: 6:00–8:00 PM
Where/Lugar: Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden

Join artist Tatiana Arocha and curator Juliana Steiner for an intimate conversation and exhibition walk-through of Entre la Coca y el Oro. Over a cup of coca tea, Arocha and Steiner will revisit the ideas that gave shape to the curatorial essay Unrooted Forests: Ecology, Memory, and Reciprocity in Tatiana Arocha’s Practice, reflecting from both artistic and curatorial perspectives.

Together, they will explore the exhibition’s central threads—ecology, displacement, reciprocity, and care—while walking through its installations and discussing how ancestral knowledge and extractive economies intersect in Arocha’s work. The evening offers a space to pause, listen, and think with the coca plant: a being that, as the artist reminds us, “connects worlds; it makes us speak and speaks to us.”
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Acompaña a la artista Tatiana Arocha y a la curadora Juliana Steiner en una conversación íntima y un recorrido por la exposición Entre la Coca y el Oro. Mientras comparten una taza de té de coca, Arocha y Steiner retomarán las ideas que dieron forma al texto curatorial Bosques sin raíces: ecología, memoria y reciprocidad en la práctica de Tatiana Arocha, reflexionando desde las perspectivas de la artista y de la curadora.

Juntas explorarán los hilos centrales de la exposición —ecología, desplazamiento, reciprocidad y cuidado— mientras recorren sus instalaciones y dialogan sobre cómo el conocimiento ancestral y las economías extractivas se entrelazan en la obra de Arocha. La velada invita a detenerse, escuchar y pensar junto a la planta de coca: un ser que, como recuerda la artista, “conecta mundos; nos hace hablar y nos habla”.

DECOCAINIZING COCA BOOK LAUNCH
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LANZAMIENTO DEL LIBRO DESCOCAINIZAR LA COCA

Date/Fecha: December 5th, 2025 / 5 de diciembre, 2025
Time/Hora: 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.
Where/Lugar: Library for Arts and Culture, a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library in Brooklyn, New York.
Format / Formato: In-person / Presencial (with simultaneous translation / con traducción simultánea)
Speakers / Ponentes: Marcela Vallejo (Col), and Tatiana Arocha (Col/US)

Colombian artist Tatiana Arocha—creator of the 2023 commission Destellos naranjas en la copa de los árboles for the Sunset Park Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library—and Colombian anthropologist Marcela Vallejo come together for the launch of their collaborative book Descocainizar la coca / Decocainizing Coca. The presentation opens a space to share and expand on the conversation they have sustained over the past three years, a dialogue born from their shared interest in the coca leaf—a plant with which each of them has had different relationships, but one which allowed them to meet each other.

Their ongoing exchange has not only led to growth in each of their works but also to the joint construction of projects, such as this book. The event will trace the journey of that dialogue—the strands it has taken, the encounters with other women who have nourished it—and invite the attending public to reflect on the coca leaf as a being that connects worlds; it makes us speak and speaks to us.
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La artista colombiana Tatiana Arocha—creadora de la comisión Destellos naranjas en la copa de los árboles (2023) para la sucursal de Sunset Park de la Biblioteca Pública de Brooklyn—y la antropóloga colombiana Marcela Vallejo se reúnen para el lanzamiento de su libro colaborativo Descocainizar la coca / Decocainizing Coca. La presentación se concibe como un espacio para compartir y ampliar la conversación que han sostenido durante los últimos tres años, un diálogo nacido de su interés compartido por la hoja de coca, una planta con la que cada una ha tenido diferentes relaciones, pero que les permitió encontrarse.

El intercambio que han mantenido no solo ha significado un crecimiento en la obra de cada una, sino también la construcción conjunta de proyectos como este libro. El evento recorrerá el camino de ese diálogo—los hilos que ha tomado, los encuentros con otras mujeres de quienes se ha nutrido—e invitará al público asistente a reflexionar sobre la hoja de coca como un ser que conecta mundos; que nos hace hablar y nos habla.

OPENING RECEPTION
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COCTEL DE INAUGURACION

October / octubre 12, 2025
2:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art
Snug Harbor Cultural Center
Main Hall Gallery, Building C
1000 Richmond Ter., Staten Island, NY 10301

PATHWAYS OF MAMA COCA
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LOS CAMINOS DE MAMA COCA

When / Cuando: October / octubre 15, 2025
Time / Hora: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Format / Formato: Virtual Zoom (with simultaneous translation / con traducción simultanea)
Speakers / Ponentes: Juan David Piñacué (Col), Sdenka Silva (BOL), Marcela Vallejo (Col), and Tatiana Arocha (Col/US)

We will hear from Juan Piñacué, a Nasa Indigenous activist and defender of the plant, and from Sdenka Silva, a sociologist and activist who advocates for the coca leaf and is the director of the Coca Museum in La Paz, Bolivia. This conversation will explore their perspectives and the points where they converge.
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Hablaremos a partir de la perspectiva de Juan Piñacué, indígena nasa, activista por la defensa de la planta e hijo de la mamá coca, y de Sdenka Silva, una socióloga activista defensora de la hoja de coca y directora del Museo de la Coca en La Paz, Bolivia. En este conversatorio conoceremos esas dos perspectivas y podremos conocer las formas en que convergen.

ENTRE LA COCA Y EL ORO:
ARTIST TALK WITH TATIANA AROCHA

Octubre 16 / October 16, 2025
4:30 PM to 5:30 PM (EDT)
Alvin Johnson/J.M. Kaplan Hall - Room 404
66 West 12th Street

Entre la Coca y el Oro is an exhibition by New York-born Colombian artist Tatiana Arocha that weaves art and community together to reclaim the narrative surrounding the coca plant. On view from October 12, 2025, to January 12, 2026, at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art at Snug Harbor, the exhibition explores Coca’s cultural, spiritual, social, and ecological significance while challenging colonial and extractivist perspectives.

 Join the Parsons DEED Lab for this artist talk, where we will hear from Arocha about her practice, which confronts the ecological, emotional, and cultural losses caused by extractive economies and colonial practices. Two of her collaborators, Yadira Bueno and Margarita Suárez, from the San Lorenzo de Barichara Foundation in Colombia, will also be present to share details of their fiber-to-paper craft practices.

Presented by Parsons School of Design Strategies and Parsons DEED Lab.

OPEN HOUSE NEW YORK

I’m excited to participate in two Open House New York events this year / Me alegra participar en dos eventos de Open House New York este año.

Join me for MTA Arts & Design: Art on the Elevated J/Z Line, where we’ll explore the vibrant public art along Brooklyn’s J/Z line. / Acompáñenme en MTA Arts & Design: Art on the Elevated J/Z Line, un recorrido por el arte público que anima la línea elevada J/Z en Brooklyn.

Experience Entre la Coca y el Oro at Snug Harbor’s Newhouse Center and meet Yadira and Margarita, the Colombian artisans who worked with me to create the site-specific installation Sueños con Jardines de Coca / Visiten Newhouse Center de Snug Harbor – Entre la Coca y el Oro, mi exposición individual que reimagina las narrativas culturales y ecológicas de la planta de coca.

“CHEWING” THE COCA LEAF? EPISTEMIC VIOLENCE AND COUNTER-COLONIAL TRANSLATIONS
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¿“MASTICAR” LAS HOJAS DE COCA? VIOLENCIAS EPISTÉMICAS Y TRADUCCIONES CONTRACOLONIALES

When / Cuando: October / octubre 29, 2025
Time / Hora: 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Format / Formato: Virtual Zoom (with simultaneous translation / con traducción simultanea)
Speakers / Ponentes: Ana Gretel Echazú (Br), María Eugenia Flores (Arg), Marcela Vallejo (Col), and Tatiana Arocha (Col/US)

These two Argentine anthropologists research power plants in northern Argentina and the Amazon. With them, we will discuss plant rights and the coca leaf in terms of the translation problems that fuel negative perceptions. We are interested in exploring the concept of translation: How can we describe this plant, so vital to Andean and Amazonian Indigenous peoples, in contexts of intense persecution?
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Las investigaciones de estas dos antropólogas argentinas giran en torno a las plantas de poder en el norte de Argentina y la Amazonía. Con ellas conversaremos sobre derechos de las plantas y sobre la coca en términos de los problemas de traducción que alimentan visiones negativas de  ella. En este conversatorio nos interesa profundizar y guiar la conversación a partir de la idea de traducción. ¿Cómo hablar de esta planta tan importante para los pueblos indígenas andinos y amazónicos en contextos de alta persecución?

INTERLOCKED ECONOMIES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS: COCA DOESN’T EXPLAIN EVERYTHING
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ECONOMÍAS ARTICULADAS Y CRISIS AMBIENTAL: NO TODO LO EXPLICA LA COCA

When / Cuando: November / noviembre 5
Time / Hora: 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Format / Formato: Virtual Zoom (with simultaneous translation / con traducción simultánea)
Speakers / Ponentes: Rodrigo Botero (Col), María Alejandra Vélez (Col) (TBD / Por confirmar), Marcela Vallejo (Col), and Tatiana Arocha (Col/US)

María Alejandra Vélez is an environmental economist who has studied environmental governance, focusing on various forms of both legal and illegal extractive economies. Rodrigo Botero, director of the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS), is a leading expert on the dynamics and realities of the Colombian Amazon. Karla Díaz, a political scientist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Bonn, Germany, researches cattle ranching and its role in environmental impact within the Amazon.

In this conversation, these experts will discuss this region, one of the most important in the world in terms of biodiversity and its role in global climate and environmental stability. The Amazon is currently under severe threat: large-scale deforestation, mining, cattle ranching, and drug trafficking. This panel will address the environmental impact of the War on Drugs and its connection with extractive models affecting the forests, exploring how these dynamics impact ecosystems, the communities that inhabit them, and the affective bonds people maintain with their territories.
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María Alejandra Vélez es una economista ambiental que ha estudiado la gobernanza ambiental y que se ha interesado por diferentes formas de las economías extractivas lícitas e ilícitas; Rodrigo Botero, director de la Fundación para la Conservación y el Desarrollo Sostenible (FCDS), es un gran conocedor de las dinámicas y realidades de la Amazonia colombiana y Karla Díaz, politóloga y candidata a Doctora por la Universidad de Bonn, Alemania, que investiga ganadería y su papel en impacto ambiental en la Amazonia.

En esta conversación, estos expertos hablarán sobre esta región, una de las más importantes en el mundo en términos de su biodiversidad y de su papel en el clima y la estabilidad ambiental global. Esta región se está viendo profundamente amenazada: talas masivas, explotación minera, ganadería y tráfico de drogas. En este conversatorio queremos abordar el impacto ambiental de la guerra contra las drogas y de su articulación con modelos extractivos sobre las selvas, explorando cómo estas dinámicas afectan los ecosistemas, las comunidades que los habitan y los vínculos afectivos con el territorio.

This exhibition is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, with additional funding from the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts with the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, The Puffin Foundation, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs with the support of the Mayor and the City Council. It has also received support from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Consulado de Colombia en Nueva York, Casa Colombia Nueva York, and Colombia Nos Une. Selected as part of the New York Latin American Art Triennial (NYLAAT), the exhibition expands its reach within New York City’s broader cultural landscape.