WAKEFUL BECOMING

19 02 2026

Concept by Karla Peralta Málaga Senior Art Curator

WAKEFUL BECOMING explores the conscious reciprocity between humanity and nature, inspired by the Andean concept of “Pawqar Waray”. In the Andean world, this represents both a category of time and a specific state of nature when earth flowers and ripens at the same time and people adorn themselves in ceremonial preparation.

This exhibition merges Andean cosmovision with Western philosophical thought to challenge how we conceptualize artistic creation itself. Guaman Poma's drawing of Pawqar Waray in February, when earth adorns itself while ripening towards harvest, resonates with Deleuze's concept of “becoming”, which is the understanding that identity is not fixed but emerges through continuous transformation and relation. Neither humans nor nature exist as separate, complete entities, both are always in the process of becoming through their relationship with each other. Creation is participatory. Readiness is mutual. The artwork emerges not from individual will imposing form on matter, but from conscious synchronization with processes already in progress, the blooming and the becoming ripe.

The exhibition asks: what if art making is less about representation and more about preparation? Less about capturing nature and more about dressing alongside it? Materials themselves possess agency, oil paint behaves differently than watercolor, than ink, each with its own rhythms and resistances. Contemporary artists are invited to explore this space where artist and nature work together as partners. The exhibition seeks artworks that transform the viewing space into one of reciprocal readiness: works where the act of making reveals a partnership between artist and materials: the brush follows water's flow, clay responds to touch, pigment settles according to its own nature. Inseparable: human creativity and natural processes.

We're seeking visual responses that reject extraction and embrace entanglement: painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, and mixed media exploring processes of preparation and transformation. Works where materiality acts with agency, pigment, fiber, clay, and paper actively participating in meaning making rather than passively receiving form. Compositions where materials themselves suggest readiness and becoming, revealing art as both cultural and biological imperative.

WAKEFUL BECOMING positions art as the space where ancient wisdom meets contemporary urgency. In an era of disconnection, these works propose active, conscious, beautiful participation in becoming. This is coexistence as mutual adornment. This is the art of preparing together, flowering together, becoming together, wide awake. WAKEFUL BECOMING.