Signal and Strata

On View from February 6—April 5, 2026 

Opening Reception and Artist Talk: Thursday, February 5, 2026

Signal and Strata brings together the work of three Peruvian artists—Elena Damiani, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, and Ishmael Randall-Weeks—whose practices examine the complex entanglements of land, history, and extraction through materially rich, architecturally resonant, and often pre-colonial forms. The exhibition marks the first U.S. institutional presentation to bring these artists into direct dialogue, tracing connections across their investigations of geology, capitalism, mythology, and cultural memory. 

 Working across sculpture, installation, and photography, Elena Damiani explores archeological and archival systems as frameworks for understanding time and perception. Her works reconfigure stratigraphic and sedimentary structures, revealing how natural and human processes become mutually and vitally inscribed in the geological layers of land. Ximena Garrido-Lecca examines the social and environmental consequences of colonization and resource extraction in Peru, often employing copper, clay, and other locally sourced materials that carry histories of labor, tradition, craft, exploitation, as well as possibilities of transformation. Ishmael Randall-Weeks reassembles found and recycled debris—copper, cement, brick, rubber, and earth—into hybrid architectural forms through labor-intensive processes. Each embodies cycles of production and decay, while questioning promises of progress, urbanization, and global supply chains and material culture. 

Together, their works consider the ways in which extraction—of minerals, data, images, and histories—shapes both the physical and psychic landscapes of the Andean region. Embedded in these practices are echoes of indigenous ritual and folklore, where the land is understood as a living entity and acts of making become gestures of renewal or resistance. While grounded in specific local geographies and histories, Signal and Strata also speaks to global conditions of environmental transformation and cultural displacement, inviting reflection on how systems of power and belief are built, eroded, and reimagined through matter itself.    

Funding is provided by the Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA). Generous support for Carpenter Center programming is provided by the Friends of the Carpenter Center. Special thanks to the Wagner Foundation. 

Accompanying the exhibition will be a booklet, supported by the Wagner Foundation, with a commissioned essay by Dr. Madeline Murphy Turner.

ELENA DAMIANI (b. 1979, Lima, Peru) lives and works in Lima, Peru. Damiani has participated in multiple international biennales, including the Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2023), Cuenca Biennale (2018, 2016), Gwangju Biennale (2016), Venice Biennale, Vienna Biennale and IV Poly/Graphic San Juan Triennial (both 2015) and Bienal de la Imagen y Movimiento, Buenos Aires (2014). Solo exhibitions include Americas Society New York (permanent installation, 2022), Museo de Arte de Contemporáneo, Lima (2022), Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk (2017), Museo Amparo, Puebla (2016), Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2015). She has participated in group exhibitions at Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museo De Arte Contemporáneo De Monterrey, Mexico, The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Mexico, and Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne (all 2023), Museo de Arte Zapopan, Guadalajara (2022), PIVO, São Paulo (2022), The Isabel and Agustín Coppel Collection, Mexico City (2020), DePaul Art Museum, Chicago (2020), Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2019), Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Ohio (2018), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2015), Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2015), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2013), Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (2007), IVAM Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (2007),Valencia and Kunstmuseum Bonn (2006) among others. 

XIMENA GARRIDO-LECCA (b. 1980, Lima, Peru) lives and works in Mexico City. She has presented solo exhibitions at Canal Projects, New York (2025) and The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2025). She has also exhibited at the Sharjah Biennial 16, United Arab Emirates (2025), 12th SITE SANTA FE International, Santa Fe (2025), BOG25 International Art and City Biennale, Bogotá, Colombia (2025), XXIV Bienal de Arte Paiz, Guatemala (2025), the Swiss Institute, New York (2024-25), CAN Centre d’art Neuchâtel (2023), Portikus, Frankfurt (2022-23), Museo Madre, Naples (2021), 34th Bienal de São Paulo (2020), Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA (2019-20), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Lima (2019), Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2018), and Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros (SAPS), Mexico City (2017), among other venues. 

ISHMAEL RANDALL-WEEKS (b. 1976, Cusco, Peru) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Lima, Peru. He graduated from Bard College in 2000 and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2007. His work has been exhibited in various galleries and museums both in Peru and internationally, including Middlesbrough Institute of Modern of Art, England, United Kingdom; MoMA P.S.1, New York; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lima, Peru; Spanish Culture Center of Buenos Aires (CCBBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; The Drawing Center, New York, United States; Museum of Art of Lima (MALI), Lima, Peru; Macro Museum | Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome, Italy; National Museum, Lima, Peru; The Museum of Arts and Design, New York, United States; Museum of the Bank of the Republic, Bogotá, Colombia; The Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, Bologna, Italy; The Drawing Room, London, United Kingdom; Museum of Fine Arts, Mexico City, Mexico; the Bronx Museum, New York, United States; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, United States. His work has also been included in the Havana Biennial, the IX and the XIV Bienials de Cuenca, the 6th edition of (S) Files Biennial in El Museo del Barrio, New York and 2010 Greater New York and MomaP.S.1, amongst others.