Chuquimamani-Condori - Cry of Our Guardian Star

Alongside being awarded the Silver Lion, for the Biennale Musica 2025 Chuquimamani-Condori presents Cry of Our Guardian Star, a major new site-specific commission echoing ancient water ceremonies and celebrating sound as a collective ritual. A musical procession of small boats weaving through the canals of Venice, culminating in a live performance by Los Thuthanaka (the duo formed by Chuquimamani-Condori and their brother Joshua Chuquimia Crampton) in front of the Isolotto at the Arsenale. Rooted in Aymara cosmology and anticolonial thought, Chuquimamani-Condori’s work fuses folk traditions with digital technologies and club culture, constructing maximalist sonic landscapes where identity, history, and resistance converge. Their music reimagines sound as a vessel for storytelling and transformation, blending futuristic melodic synths with saturated polyrhythms. Resonating with the words of the artist, affiliated with the Pakajaqi nation, who recently described their experimental album DJ E as “the sound of our water ceremonies, the forty bands playing their melodies at once to recreate the cacophony of the first aurora and the scream of our star, Chuqui Chinchay”, this is one of the special projects of the Biennale Musica to connect with the social fabric of the city, starting with the local sonic culture of the lagoon and projecting it into a context of reimagination and cultural syncretism.