Peruvian Artist Claudia Ruiz Gustafson Investigates the Meaning of Exploration
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Published17 Oct 2022
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Author
Focusing on Macchu Picchu, La Ciudad En Las Nubes (The City in the Clouds) makes us reflect on the predatory nature of Columbus' 'discovery' of America, expeditions based on extensive looting and reckless appropriation.
La Ciudad en las Nubes is about a place that was never lost, it was instead unknown to the knowers that seem to count.
In this project, I reflect upon the impact of Hiram Bingham’s expeditions to Perú. A Yale University historian, Bingham was one of many western white men to lead colonial explorations between 1911 and 1915 using the advancement of science as an excuse to plunder ancient indigenous cultures. Using my photos made during a trip to the Caminos del Inca (Inca Trails) in 1998, alongside archival documents, this work retells the official version of the “discovery” of Machu Picchu.
Financed by the National Geographic Society and Yale, Bingham is credited with the “discovery” of Machu Picchu. Bingham and his team dissected the Quechua community and looted sacred graves under the guise of archeological research.
Over the course of his expeditions, Bingham took 12,000 photographs with cameras donated by Kodak. For Yale, he collected hundreds of human remains and artifacts. These photographs were published in Harper’s Magazine and National Geographic who held the exclusive rights to them, and Machu Picchu went on to become a discovery of science and the property of Yale University as its custodian.
Words and pictures by Claudia Ruiz Gustafson
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Claudia Ruiz Gustafson is a Peruvian Latinx visual artist based in Massachusetts. Her work is mainly autobiographical and self-reflective; her cross-cultural experience and Peruvian heritage deeply inform her art making. Claudia’s latest project, Mi País Imaginado / My Imagined Country, is an exploration of how imperialist/supremacist thinking rewrites histories. Follow her on Instagram and PhMuseum .
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This feature is part of Story of the Week, a selection of relevant projects from our community handpicked by the PhMuseum curators.
