Underlying the planetary, human-driven ecological crisis—which disproportionately impacts marginalized peoples, their territories, and built environments—is the assumption that nature is a mute resource. We have lost the ability to hear and heed the beings, visible and invisible, that people the living world sustaining us. This exhibition mobilizes multisensory, interdisciplinary, and trans-epistemic methods to give voice to a collection of shape-shifting archaeological figures from the pre-Hispanic coast by immersing them in the living forests of the Amazon. Presenting the capital city of Quito, Ecuador, as a spatial and temporal hinge that articulates pre-Hispanic coastal civilizations and contemporary Amazonian communities, and the forest as a space for architectural inquiry, Animismo Animado draws on an ongoing dialogue involving Amazonian shamans, anthropologists, architects, and artists, each with their own techne, working together to curate a ritualized space whose formal features can attune us to what the beings animating this threatened world have to “say.”

María Fernanda Cartagena is an established museographer and art historian who is completing a PhD dissertation in anthropology at McGill University that focuses on the relationship between visual and performative arts and Andean ontologies. She has researched, curated, and published extensively on contemporary art practices in Ecuador, focusing on art and politics, social practices, and Indigenous contemporary art. She previously led the Fundación Museos de la Ciudad and collectively developed the large-scale project Spiritualities in Quito, exhibited in a series of cultural and public venues. From 2016 to 2019 she led the Precolumbian Art Museum, Casa del Alabado, developing exhibitions and educational programs. Most recently she curated the show Plantas de Poder in the Centro Cultural Metropolitano, in Quito, which focused on the healing, spiritual and political agency of plants in contemporary art, social struggles, and community-based practices. She is a member of the research collective Red Conceptualismos del Sur.

Caá Porá Arquitectura, founded in 2014 by Paula Izurieta (Ecuador) and Gabriel Moyer-Perez (United States), specializes in research, project development, and architectural design within Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian communities, particularly in the regions of Esmeraldas and the Ecuadorian Amazon. This expertise has led to architectural projects such as the Napo Wildlife Center Tower in Añangu, the Jambatu Research Center in San Rafael, and the Palenque Cultural Tambillo project in Esmeraldas. The firm also designed and constructed Ama Ecolodge in Misahualli, and the Napo Cultural Center in Yasuni National Park. Other significant projects include the Animismo Animado exhibition at PUCE in Quito, the linear park for the “Microcuenca Río Chinambí” in Carchi, and the Hanan Kai Tourist Complex for the Municipality of Cotacachi in Imbabura. Caá Porá Arquitectura creates environmentally conscious designs that respect the cultural and environmental context of each project, enhancing both quality of life and cultural enrichment.

Eduardo Kohn is an anthropologist, and the author of How Forests Think (University of California Press, 2013), based on research in the Ecuadorian Amazon that focuses on how the inhabitants of one of the world’s most complex ecosystems relate to the forest’s myriad beings. Awarded the 2014 Gregory Bateson Award, it is translated into ten languages, inspiring the planetary ecological imagination in diverse ways, from an eponymous symphony to international museum exhibits and best-selling literary works. Kohn’s research extends beyond anthropology: fostering dialogues with the arts and design through collaborations with leading figures including Paola Antonelli, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Paulo Tavares, and Bruno Latour; and engaging in environmental activism alongside Sapara and Sarayaku communities. Kohn's upcoming book, Forest for the Trees, explores how to find guidance from the living world that holds us—what Amazonians call “forest.” He teaches at McGill University and is anthropology lead for the Leadership for the Ecozoic Initiative.

Fabiano Kueva is a sound-artist that uses text, image, sound technologies, and community archive activation—based on critical laboratory pedagogies and experimental forms of knowledge transmission—to question hegemonic narratives. Part of the Laboratorio Solanda (2016–) and Global Cultural Assembly (2023–) collectives, he has developed projects in museums, public spaces and community contexts while participating and promoting academic events and exhibitions worldwide. His awards include Best International Feature Film (Chiloé International Film Festival, Chile, 2021) and the Acquisition Award (15th International Biennial of Cuenca, Ecuador, 2021). Kueva participated in the 10th Havana Biennial (Cuba, 2009), the 2nd Montevideo Biennial (Uruguay, 2014); and the 56th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (Italy, 2015). He has been an artist in residence at Apexart (New York), Villa Waldberta (Munich), Lugar a Dudas (Cali), OBORO (Montréal). Kueva was the recipient of the Prince Claus Fund Grant in 2010 and a 2024 Artistic Research Fellow through Cisneros Institute and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Manari Ushigua is a political and spiritual leader of the Sapara Nation in the Ecuadorian Amazon. He is a protector of the forest and a healer. Ushigua cofounded the Naku Center, creating a new economic model in the Amazon focused on cultural and forest preservation. His work at Naku, along with his lectures and healing ceremonies, aims to help people connect to a living world, both visible and invisible. Ushigua has been a key figure in the Indigenous movements of Ecuador: as vice president of CONAIE (The National Indigenous Organization of Ecuador, 2013–16); and president of the Sapara Federation (1999–2012). Ushigua has participated in international events, such as COP21, the United Nations Climate Summit, and the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights, raising awareness about his threatened homeland. As a defender of indigenous rights, he managed to conserve more than 276,000 hectares of primary forest threatened by extractive industries.