Generales

By Natalia Piedrahita Tamayo, Journalist at UdeA Communications Office 

The Museum of the Universidad de Antioquia (MUUA) and the Cisneros Fontanals Foundation for the Arts (CIFO) present an exhibition of emerging artists featuring a performance and installation that challenge traditional views of the female body and territory. Chilean artist Paula Coñoepan Acuña showcases El secreto del ají (The Secret of Chili Pepper) on the museum’s ground floor until April 25, 2025. 

Still from The Secret of Chili Peppers, featuring a 200-centimeter braided goat horn chili installation and a 7-minute, 13-second video by artist Paula Coñoepan Acuña. Photo courtesy. 

In this theatrical, performative, and interactive project, artist Paula Coñoepan Acuña examines the body’s cultural and social roles through organic materials like chili peppers, representing the Earth. Drawing from rural southern Chile, she challenges ingrained ideas of guilt and punishment found in religious and traditional beliefs, exposing the hidden structures that reinforce oppression. 

“The work emerges from an anonymous story told by an older woman, which I narrate and reinterpret, making it my own. It begins with this transformation—turning a personal traumatic experience into a shared one, offering a symbolic way to process that pain. The story carries a biographical element, and the video follows it literally at first, then shifts to explore other possibilities, using images that act as visual allegories of the narrative,” said Coñoepan Acuña. 

The Secret of the Chili Pepper, available for free viewing from Tuesday, January 28, on the ground floor of MUUA, explores the disconnect between how women perceive their bodies and the roles society imposes on them. In this context, the chili pepper is depicted as a phallic symbol, introducing ambiguity into the body: its sting, almost a form of punishment, highlights the tension between desire and suffering. This imagery evokes Eve, the first woman, who, ashamed of her nakedness, flees the Garden of Eden due to her sin. 

The story of guilt and repression comes to life on stage, inspired by artists like Regina José Galindo (Guatemala) and Tracey Emin (United Kingdom), who capture the vulnerability and painful experiences many women worldwide endure. 

Liliana Correa Rodríguez, curator of the exhibition and the Visual Arts Collection at the University Museum, explained that rural women embody submission. “From a young age, they are conditioned to follow specific social and cultural norms in their country, where pain and suffering play a key role. The burning sensation the body experiences when touching the chili pepper symbolizes this. The video illustrates this action. Paula’s story is a moving narrative that brings us closer to an exploration of femininity, motherhood, and the complex relationship between women, the land, and their social roles,” the researcher remarked. 

Inter-Actions Exhibition. The exhibition presents ten works by artists from Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela, offering a diverse mix of traditional techniques and innovative technologies. The pieces tackle critical global and local issues such as forced migration, gender violence, the social and ecological crises, and the tensions between the natural and the artificial. Each work creates an interdisciplinary dialogue, blending art with social sciences and inviting reflection on these challenges.