Donna Huanca

Donna Huanca (born 1980) is an American multidisciplinary artist from Chicago, Illinois, known for immersive installations that combine painting, sculpture, performance, sound, and scent.[1] Her work explores themes of embodiment, ritual, transformation, and decolonial perspectives, often centering the human body as a site of cultural and political meaning.[2]

Huanca’s installations draw from Indigenous Andean cosmologies, feminist theory, and speculative approaches to time and narrative.[3] Her work has been described as situated within a lineage of feminist Latin American performance art, and has been compared to that of artists including Ana Mendieta, Teresa Margolles, and Cecilia Vicuña.[4]

Biography

Huanca was raised in Chicago, Illinois, by Bolivian parents from Santa Cruz and Potosí.[5] During her childhood, she frequently traveled to Bolivia, particularly to attend the Festival de Urkupiña in Cochabamba. She has described these early experiences as formative influences that shaped the ritualistic and performative elements of her practice.[6]


From 2006 to 2017, Huanca participated in artist residencies in various countries, which contributed to the development of her work across different cultural contexts.[7]

Education

Huanca received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Houston in 2004.[8] She studied at the Städelschule (Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste) in Frankfurt from 2009 to 2010, and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine in 2006.[9]

In 2012, she was awarded a Fulbright research grant, which enabled her to develop projects in Mexico City focused on pre-Columbian symbolism, textile traditions, and urban subcultures — themes that later became central to her practice.[10]

Artistic practice

Huanca’s work combines painting, sculpture, olfactory elements, sound, and durational performance.[3] Collaborating performers, whose bodies are painted with natural pigments, activate her installations through slow, deliberate movement.[11] Documentation of these performances is often collaged and printed on canvas, which Huanca layers with pigment, clay, and other materials to create large-scale works. These elements circulate between performance and exhibition, forming an evolving body of work.[4]

Her installations frequently disrupt conventional exhibition structures and encourage multisensory engagement. Soundscapes and fragrances derived from botanical materials are used to immerse audiences.[9] Through these methods, Huanca addresses questions of embodiment, materiality, and visibility, and engages Indigenous epistemologies as a form of resistance to colonial frameworks. Materials such as clay, salt, and natural fibers are incorporated as carriers of cultural memory.[2]

Huanca’s work has also been associated with the Andean Futurism movement, alongside artists such as Freddy Mamani, Chuquimamani Condori (formerly Elysia Crampton), and Alan Poma.[6]

Career

Huanca began gaining international recognition with her early solo exhibitions in the 2010s.

Selected exhibitions

  • MINA DE AURA, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC), Seville, Spain (2025)
  • UTOPIC CELLS, Faurschou Foundation, New York (2023)
  • BLISS POOL, Space K, Seoul (2023)
  • MAGMA SLIT, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2022)
  • PORTAL DE PLATA, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022, curated)
  • ESPEJO QUEMADA, Ballroom Marfa, Texas (2021)
  • LENGUA LLORONA, Copenhagen Contemporary (2019)
  • OBSIDIAN LADDER, Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles (2019)
  • PIEDRA QUEMADA, Belvedere Museum, Vienna, Austria (2018)

Selected collections


Huanca has also participated in group exhibitions including presentations at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2025), Metropolitan Museum of Manila (2024), Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (2022), Kunstverein in Hamburg (2021), M HKA (2020), and the Julia Stoschek Collection (2017).[11]

In 2022, she curated Christen Sveaas Art Foundation: Portal de Plata at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, an exhibition that examined histories of mining and Indigenous knowledge systems.[19]

In October 2025, Huanca presented a performance activation titled Donna Huanca and the Temple of Dendur at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In this work, she reimagined the ancient Egyptian temple as a living being, linking its architecture to the human body through ritual gestures and durational performance.[20]

Her work has been reviewed and discussed in publications such as Artforum, Mousse, Artnet, Cura, Interview Magazine, Vogue, Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.[1][7]

References

  1. ^ a b "Donna Huanca at Marciano Art Foundation". Artforum. 2019. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  2. ^ a b "Donna Huanca's Ritual Art Challenges the Museum Space". The Guardian. 2019. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  3. ^ a b "Donna Huanca's Slow Rituals". Frieze. 2019. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  4. ^ a b "Painting the Skin: Donna Huanca and Performance". Flash Art. 2020. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  5. ^ "Donna Huanca's Rituals of Transformation". The New York Times. 2019-05-18. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  6. ^ a b "Donna Huanca: Ritual, Skin, and Memory". El País. 2020. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  7. ^ a b "Donna Huanca's Futuristic Installations Are an Exercise in Sensory Meditation". Artnet News. 2021. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  8. ^ "Donna Huanca on the Female Gaze and Body Autonomy". Interview Magazine. 2018. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  9. ^ a b "Artist Donna Huanca on Body Autonomy and Performance as Protest". Vogue. 2018. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  10. ^ "Donna Huanca's Material Transformations". ArtReview. 2019. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  11. ^ a b "Donna Huanca's Sensorial Installations Blur the Line Between Performance and Sculpture". Hyperallergic. 2022. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  12. ^ Whitney Museum of American Art – Collection: Donna Huanca
  13. ^ Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum – Collection: Donna Huanca
  14. ^ Rubell Museum – Donna Huanca
  15. ^ Skarstedt Gallery – Artist page: Donna Huanca
  16. ^ Belvedere Museum – Exhibition and collection entry
  17. ^ Yuz Museum – Donna Huanca: Cell Echo
  18. ^ Taguchi Art Collection – Donna Huanca
  19. ^ "Christen Sveaas Art Foundation: Portal de Plata". Whitechapel Gallery. 2022. Retrieved 2025-10-10.
  20. ^ "Explorations: Artist Donna Huanca and the Temple of Dendur". The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 2025-10-30.

Further reading



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