Project for Empty Space is pleased to present the solo exhibition show La voz del anonimato (The voice of anonymity) by 2025 Artist In Residence Layqa Nuna Yawar, open to the public from September 10th, 2025, to February 28, 2026, at PES Ironside, 110 Edison Place, Newark, NJ.

La voz del anonimato (The voice of anonymity) is the result of a two-year residency and presents artwork centering the voices of contemporary Andean diaspora members from the tri-state area. With this body of work, Layqa is focusing on historical invisibility, embodied by his study of unidentified colonial master painters of the Andes, and contemporary invisibility, experienced by immigrant people the world over, but specifically those living in the USA during the current rise of neo-fascism. Layqa is driven by a question: What would his contemporary canon and culture look like without this colonial erasure? Some of the answers come as fluid imagery that does not try to hold on to a single reality, but that offers contradictory meanings instead of synthesis, exploration of materials, and investigation of landscape and portraiture, both of the Western tradition and specific to the Andean diaspora.

Minga & Memory is a free, public, educational program focused on Andean philosophy, visual language, and immigrant movement-building. Five 90-minute workshops, led by Layqa and collaborating partners, will take place alongside Layqa’s PES exhibition. As a starting point for conversations around Andean enduring cultural concepts, they explore the current realities of diasporic existence under an oppressive, anti-immigrant government.

These workshops are a natural extension of my practice. They combine the public and collaborative nature of muralism with the inquiry and research of studio painting. My goal is to amplify the narratives of people who have been historically oppressed and silenced, people who are currently being kidnapped and expatriated, people who look like me, who come from the lands I come from, people who share my ancestral legacy. We have been separated by time, geography, and colonialism, and I aim to create a space where we can find each other in the now, while thinking and talking about our shared past. This work is rooted in shared liberation and welcomes all.

(Layqa Nuna Yawar)