Tinkuy: Queer Memories of Peru Exhibition Launch
About this Event
Join us for Tinkuy: Queer Memories of Peru, a photography exhibition exploring themes of Peruvian history, collective memory, and community.
Some stories survive at the margins of memory. Tinkuy: Queer Memories of Peru proposes a journey through the history of sexual and gender dissidence in Peru. Through a photographic exhibition rooted in artistic research, José Miguel Dávila Salas brings fragments of the past into dialogue with the bodies and experiences of contemporary LGBTQ+ activists.
The exhibition brings together six stories spanning different moments in Peruvian history: from the pre-Columbian Andean figure of Chuquichinchay and dissident masculinities in colonial Lima to early forms of travesti political organising and the violence experienced by LGBTQ+ people during Peru’s internal armed conflict. Their traces remain scattered across chronicles, judicial records, newspapers, images and popular narratives—documents that also reveal how dissident bodies have been observed, named, disciplined and, in many cases, erased from collective memory.
The photographs were created in Arequipa in collaboration with contemporary LGBTQ+ activists, artists and community members who embody these memories. Their presence creates a dialogue between those who inhabited other moments in history and those who continue to build spaces of resistance, community and belonging today.
The name Tinkuy comes from an Andean concept associated with encounter and confluence. It can describe the place where two currents meet and the forces that emerge from that contact: tension, exchange, mediation and transformation. This idea runs throughout the exhibition. Counter-archive, memory and the present converge in the images, allowing fragmented stories to circulate again.
Tinkuy proposes a fragmented genealogy of Peruvian dissidence and reflects on the images through which identities and collective memories are shaped. From a situated and decolonial perspective, the project brings forward references rooted in Peruvian histories and territories, opening a space where queer, trans, travesti and gender-diverse experiences can recognise themselves as part of a shared Peruvian memory.
The exhibition is accompanied by an artist talk and participatory workshop, extending these questions into a collective space and inviting participants to explore their own relationships with memory, identity and belonging, as well as the ways queer communities remember, transmit and reimagine the stories that shape them.
About the artist
José Miguel Dávila Salas (he/she/they) is a Peruvian artist-researcher, social psychologist and LGBTQ+ activist whose practice moves between artistic creation, research and community work.
His work explores queer memory, collective identity, archives and the ways gender and sexual dissidence challenge dominant narratives of history and belonging. Trained in social psychology at Université Paris Nanterre, he also has a background in art direction, visual culture and cultural mediation.
He has been involved in LGBTQ+ activism and community initiatives in Peru and France, including Red LGBT Arequipa, Maricolandia and L’Escale–BASILIADE. His artistic and research projects span photography, archives, installation, performance and participatory practices. His ongoing project, Tinkuy: Queer Memories of Peru, reconstructs overlooked queer Peruvian histories through archival research and contemporary image-making. His work has been presented through exhibitions, workshops and talks in Peru, France and Germany, including Stuttgart, Paris Nanterre and Munich.
Accessibility
The Centre’s accessibility statement is here.
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Agenda
🕑: 05:00 PM - 05:15 PM
Welcome and introduction to the exhibition
🕑: 05:15 PM - 06:15 PM
Artist talk: Tinkuy: Queer Memories of Peru
🕑: 06:15 PM - 07:15 PM
Participatory workshop
Info: The workshop will begin with a short participatory exercise inviting attendees to remember a queer person, place, community or story that has been meaningful to them.
Jose will then share how Tinkuy came to life, introducing the artistic research process behind the exhibition.
Participants will return to the memories shared at the beginning and open a collective conversation about how they can be preserved, transmitted and reimagined. Together, we’ll begin creating a small collective counter-archive, bringing these personal and community histories into dialogue. The workshop capacity is limited to a first come first serve basis
🕑: 07:15 PM - 07:30 PM
Open discussion, Q&A and exhibition viewing
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 0.00
