The exhibition “Ayahuasca and art of the Peruvian Amazon” was inaugurated on September 13 at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich, UK. It will be open to the public until February 2025.

The exhibition has different components, which present the use of ayahuasca in the production of art specifically for the Peruvian Amazonian Shipibo-Conibo community and its intimate connection with their spirituality. Among these pieces are textiles with psychedelic “kené” patterns, which demonstrate Amazonian cosmology; multiple works of art in ceramics, sculpture or painting linked to the consumption of ayahuasca; a “kené” mural hand-painted by two representatives of the Shipibas Muralists Collective, Delicia Milka Franco Ahuanari and Zoila Maynas Soto, who also shared how they use their art to establish a sacred connection with nature and achieve healing and peace; a guided virtual reality experience simulating the effect of ayahuasca consumption.

The event was opened by the Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and Professor of Art and Archaeology at the University of East Anglia, Jago Cooper, who then gave way to the Ambassador of Peru in the United Kingdom, Ignacio Higueras, who highlighted the importance of the traditional use of ayahuasca for Amazonian cultures, also symbolizing the deep respect that these communities have for the environment, traditions and our ancestors.

At the end of the opening ceremony, there was special thanks to the Sainsbury Centre for hosting the exhibition in the United Kingdom, to the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris for making it possible, and to the talented Shipibo-Conibo artists, for being able to bring Amazonian art closer to the general public.

Finally, the president of the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Emmanuel Kasarhérou, thanked the Sainsbury Centre for allowing the exhibition to be brought from Paris to London, as well as Ambassador Higueras for his support and dissemination. He also reflected on the importance of spaces like this to demystify the use of ayahuasca as a harmful element, and contextualise it in a traditional and ancestral framework.