william cordova 

Marcela Guerrero: When our guests come out to the Whitney terrace, they're going to see a great monumental installation by Peruvian artist william cordova. william was born in Peru but has actually lived in Miami and in the United States for many, many years.

The structure’s titled Huaca Sacred Geometries. The structure is inspired by an Ichma Temple.The Ichma people were a pre-Inca group of people that lived in Peru before the Spanish came.The Huaca is a name for a temple. So, Huaca Huantille is a temple that is located actually nearby were william grew up in the Magdalena del Mar district in Lima.

This temple, for many years it was in disarray and disuse before the government came in and took over it and made it very nice and pretty, and made it a national historic archeological site. But before that, many homeless people took over the Huaca and made it their home. And basically, they created their shelters out of scaffolds. And so, this is kind of paying a tribute to the people who lived there before the government came in and took over.

There are two other elements that are part of the installation. People will see gourds placed in what might seem sporadic or kind of random, but it's actually a reference to maybe an orbit or a constellation of stars.

Narrator: For slaves escaping the southern part of the United States on the Underground Railroad, the “drinking gourd” was code for the Big Dipper—and the path to the North.

Marcela Guerrero: We can see through the gourds and also the stainless steel gate, which is kind of evoking the confluence of many different cultures that are actually also part of the foundation of Peru, incorporating not just indigenous and obviously the Spanish, but also the Afro-Peruvian communities that make-up what Peru is today.