November 16, 2025 0 Artist Spotlight, Contemporary art, Costa Rica, Exhibition Belinda Interview | Carlos Fernández Interview | Carlos Fernández on REUNIÓN and the new exhibition in San José, Nos Miran las Plantas As TEOR/éTica and Lado V present Nos Miran las Plantas in San José—an international Latin American art exhibition featuring 17 artists exploring botanical knowledge and decolonial perspectives—we spoke with Costa Rican artist and curator Carlos Fernández, co-founder of REUNIÓN CR. The show presents artists from Costa Rica, Latin America and beyond including Nona Inescu from Romania and Trevor Young from Hong Kong. Together, their practices question how science, ecology and cultural memory inform our relationship to the vegetal world. Latin American Art Exhibition Participating Artists in Nos Miran las Plantas Mariela Álvarez (Costa Rica) Marisabel Arias (Peru) Marilyn Boror Bor (Guatemala) Daniela Flores Arías (Mexico) Roman Flores (Colombia) Nona Inescu (Romania) Anna Matteucci (Costa Rica) Manuela Morales Délano (Chile) Cecilia Moya Risco (Chile) Marjorie Navarro (Costa Rica) Verónica Navas (Costa Rica) Karen Olsen Yu (Costa Rica) Dharmendra Prasad Anthony Robinson (Costa Rica) Adán Vallecillo (Honduras) Diana Villalobos Fontana (Costa Rica) Trevor Yeung (Hong Kong) Curatorial: Carlos Fernández and Sergio Rojas Chaves. A little bit about Carlos Fernández Living and working on a small farm in the hills of Santa Ana, Carlos Fernández has built a practice inspired by soil, food histories and the politics of land. His paintings often blend acrylic with clay, turmeric, achiote or black earth sourced directly from the terrain around him, while his performances and research-based projects trace how knowledge is carried through ingredients, agriculture and community exchange. It is an approach that has become a signature of his work, folding his personal rural life into contemporary practice. Carlos Fernández, Crotos en Paisaje | Achiote, soil, beeswax and acrylic on canvas That grounding informs the role he now plays within REUNIÓN, the international platform he co-directs with collaborators in Costa Rica, Honduras and Sierra Leone. REUNIÓN’s projects develop in museums, farms, forests and urban spaces, often through collective encounters that focus on processes, rather than traditional displays of artworks. The organisation’s decentralised model aligns closely with Fernández’s broader interests: shared learning, ecological attention and the social dynamics of making work together. This context frames his curatorial involvement in Nos Miran las Plantas, the exhibition now open at TEOR/éTica and Lado V. Presenting 17 artists from Costa Rica, Latin America and further afield, the works in the show examine botanical knowledge from critical, sensory and decolonial perspectives. For Fernández, it offers a chance to extend themes he has explored for years, particularly through Trazando Conexiones, the performative dinners or "activations" he has developed since 2019, where cooking becomes a way to discuss land use, labour and overlooked forms of expertise. The photographs included in this article are documentation of past activations, showing the kind of atmosphere he creates: tables laid with produce, improvised gatherings, and the intimate, precise labour of preparing food together. Below, Fernández discusses the origins of REUNIÓN, the curatorial thinking behind Nos Miran las Plantas, and the directions leading his own practice forward. Q&A with Carlos Fernández 1. BS: Could you tell us about REUNIÓN, how the initiative began and what drives its mission within the Costa Rican and Latin American contemporary art context? CF: In 2012, Reunión began in Zurich with curator Sandino Scheidegguer, but it closed in 2015. In 2018, in dialogue with Sandino, we agreed to create a new Reunión branch in San José. That same year, Reunión Tegucigalpa was created with artist Adán Vallecillos, and in 2021, Reunión Sierra Leone was inaugurated. Reunión is one project and several projects in which artists of different nationalities collaborate and cooperate with our networks of acquaintances, with each branch having its own curatorial program. We often create projects within galleries or museums, but primarily outdoors: in the street, the forest, an island, abandoned buildings, rural communities, etc. Fruits, vegetables and herbs presented during Carlos Fernández’s participatory activation 2. BS: Nos Miran las Plantas is a collaborative Latin American art exhibition. How did you and Sergio Rojas Chaves approach selecting these participants, and what kinds of works or perspectives can visitors expect to encounter in the exhibition? CF: The artists we selected for this exhibition were chosen based on several criteria: we sought out emerging and established artists whose practice or specific works incorporate botanical elements, whether as material sources, or from an affective, sensory, or critical perspective. Through our connections with national and international artists, and guided by this search, we compiled this list of artists. Visitors will encounter a diverse range of works engaging the botanical world through material, sensory and research-driven approaches. 3. BS: Could you share a bit about what you've created for Nos Miran las Plantas, and what ideas or directions you're exploring next in your practice? CF: For this exhibition, I am primarily participating as a curator alongside Sergio Rojas. We both defined the exhibition's central theme through our shared interests. However, within the exhibition framework, Sergio and I will create activations stemming from our individual practices. In this instance, I will be conducting an activation/performance linked to Marjorie Navarro's work, currently on display in the TEOR/éTica gallery. Her piece reflects on vegetables that are often discarded because they don't meet ideal "beauty" standards for sale. The activation of this piece will take the form of a tour to a farmers' market with 15 participants, where we will search for discarded foods. Afterward, we will return to the exhibition galleries and collectively cook these foods. Since 2019, I have been conducting these "performative dinners," which I title "Tracing Connections." In these dinners, I discuss the history of food and its ecological origins while explaining how to prepare different recipes. As Fernández continues to develop work rooted in soil, food histories and ecological materials, it will be compelling to see how the conversations emerging from Nos Miran las Plantas inform future directions in his painting and research-based practice. While the Q&A offers insight into Fernández’s curatorial approach and the collaborative ethos behind Nos Miran las Plantas, this internationally-focused Latin American art exhibition also sits within a much longer and more complex history of how plant life has been understood, and used, in the Americas. To fully appreciate the stakes of the artworks on view, it is helpful to consider how botanical knowledge has affected relationships between land, power and culture across centuries. The themes explored by these 17 artists speak to the political histories carried by seeds, soils, pigments, and cultivated plants themselves. The following context outlines some of the broader frameworks that inform the exhibition. Why Plants Matter: Colonial Histories & Decolonial Resistance Plants were central to colonial power European empires used botanical expeditions and gardens to map, classify, and control plant life across the Americas. Colonisers extracted plants for medicine, agriculture, dyes, and industry, often without consent from the communities who cultivated this knowledge. Colonial science erased local knowledge systems Latin binomial naming and Western botanical science separated plants from the spiritual, cultural, and relational worlds they belonged to. Indigenous and Afro-descendant knowledge was dismissed as “informal,” even though it sustained ecosystems for centuries. For Indigenous communities, plants are more than resources Plants function as kin, teachers, healers, and historical archives. Plant-based practices, from agriculture to weaving to medicine, became forms of cultural continuity and resistance during and after colonization. Contemporary artists reclaim these histories Many Latin American artists use seeds, soils, pigments, medicinal plants, or agricultural methods as critical tools seen particularly in Latin American art exhibitions. Their work exposes how botany is entangled with land rights, extraction, and power, and how plant knowledge can guide ecological futures. Latin American Art Exhibition Conclusion | Nos Miran las Plantas Nos Miran las Plantas opens during a time when questions of land and ecological futures can no longer be ignored. Through the work of these 17 artists — who engage with soil, memory, medicinal plants, discarded vegetables, pigments, seeds, landscapes, and their inherited stories — the exhibition proposes that looking at plants is inseparable from questions of power, care, survival and imagination. Across TEOR/éTica and Lado V, the works presented here form a living archive of relationships: between bodies and territories, ancestral knowledge and contemporary crises, artistic practice and ecological attention. They reconsider how vegetal life sees us, shapes us, sustains us and remembers us. The artists in Nos Miran las Plantas remind us that to look at plants is to confront histories of extraction and erasure, and to look at the possible paths toward repair. For more information about this Latin American art exhibition, contact Belinda Seppings at MÍRAME using the below contact information: Email: [email protected] Follow: Facebook | Instagram MÍRAME | Latin American Art Exhibition | San José | REUNIÓN
