[Correction (March 5, 2026): This article has been corrected to include the role that Loeb Assistant Curator Alyx Raz played in the exhibition and talk.]
On Thursday, Jan. 29, renowned visual artist, poet and activist Cecilia Vicuña took the stage in Taylor Hall 102. After a military coup against democratically-elected President Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973, Vicuña lived in self-imposed exile from her home country until her eventual return. She now divides her time between Santiago and New York. Her work has been created and exhibited in various locations around the world and has earned her awards such as the Premio Velázquez de Artes Plásticas, one of Spain’s top visual art awards.
Vicuña’s 1980 film “What is Poetry to You?” (“¿Qué es para usted la poesia?”) was part of the “Chronostasia: Select Acquisitions 2020-2025” exhibit, organized by Assistant Curator Alyx Raz, featured in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center from Sept. 4, 2025, to Feb. 1, 2026. The program, which marked the closing of the exhibition, was organized and moderated by Raz. The film, a clip from which was shown at the talk on Thursday, features everyday citizens of Bogotá, Colombia, answering the title question. Vicuña explained, “The last question I asked was to…this group of policemen, and they couldn’t say the word poesía, poetry, without saying policía.” Similarly, Cecilia said, “I go to sleep for the sake of poetry, I get up for the sake of poetry.” To her, “Poetry is the original tradition of mankind.”
Her speech focused on this ability to take one backwards through time, particularly to the days of Indigenous origin. She dismissed the idea that time is linear and instead encouraged the recovery of ancestral memory, asserting, “We are all indigenous to this earth.” Vicuña shared that her art is sometimes subversive, particularly when created in a society that does not share her love for free expression and when, as she said, “People are willing to be controlled.”
Such barriers opposing her expression have existed around her for many years. “My poetry was censored because I was an indecent author. I’m still an indecent author,” she joked, one of many instances where her sharp sense of humor shone through onstage. Though now internationally renowned, she described how she feels free expression continues to be at risk. Vicuña’s latest concern is artificial intelligence, by which she believes we are being “enslaved.”
With this, Vicuña worried, “Poetry is being stolen from us.” She quoted from a book by the 18th century author Novalis, “Is it possible that man himself gradually created absolute wickedness, and so gradually creates absolute evil, that both are artificial products?” She pointed out that it is particularly relevant in the discussion of artificial intelligence. Though Novalis was not alive to see events happening in the world today, Vicuña said, “He foresaw what is happening now, because it was happening back then too.”
To be authentic to herself, Vicuña has pursued her passion for environmental activism through her art from a young age. In recognition of decades of activism, she was awarded the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Eric and Wendy Schmidt Environment and Art Prize in 2024. Vicuña remembered, “Little Cecila, when I was running, the soles of my feet would turn black. So I was a little black-footed girl, even at that age.” As a teenager, Vicuña read one edition of a magazine dozens of times. “It said humanity was destroying the planet,” she recalls, “and I read that, and it’s all I needed to read to understand what I was seeing.” The ecological viewpoint she developed from her connection to the natural world has deeply affected her artistic work. “The evidence of that in my poetry,” she said, “was invisible to the culture until very recently…but in truth is present from the very beginning.”
Vicuña now lives in New York City. When asked about how she deals with being so disconnected from nature in its urban landscape, she replied, “Well, I live next to the Hudson River… There is sky, that is enough for me.”
Vicuña explained the importance of “tension” to her life and art. It is the catalyst for some of her earliest work: “What is Poetry” stemmed from the desire to understand the tension she felt between her own love for poetry and others’ apparent apathy. She wondered, “Why is it that you can love something so intensely while nobody [else] cares for it?” She explained that she has always had a deep love for language and that this tension must exist because, for her, language is a reason to get up, while for others it can be a means to lie or control.
Vicuña has consistently focused her art on heavy topics, and she explained, “Being able to be aware of what is happening and not giving in to the sorrow is really an artwork. The artwork is the way you see yourself,” she said. “The real artwork is how you speak to yourself and to others… The stupidity and lightness, that is our resource.” Her writing process also includes maintaining an “open channel,” as opposed to sitting down and deciding to think about something specific. “I keep myself empty, hollow,” she says.
This idea resonated with Vassar Chair and Professor of Hispanic Studies on the Randolph Distinguished Professor Chair Lisa Paravisini-Gebert, who joined the conversation. “I was impressed with…the idea of allowing yourself time and patience,” Paravisini-Gebert said in an interview, “the process of going through your daily life and thinking deeply about various things you’re doing and how that can be converted into a creative act.” Referencing this creative process, she added, “I think that can help bring out the best in our students.” For those who like Vicuña’s work, Paravisini-Gebert recommended Carolina Caycedo, Vik Muniz, Sebastião Salgado and Sandra Vásquez de la Horra.
Sophie Cosgrove ’29, who attended the talk, wrote to The Miscellany News, “I was in awe of Ms. Cecilia’s ability to look for and nurture understanding in the most unexpected of places… The overwhelm of political corruption and injustice feels all consuming at this particular moment, but…her art work brings people together, reminding us that we are more alike and more capable than the dominant narrative perpetuated by institutions of power.”
When asked if there was one thing she wanted Vassar students to know, Vicuña told The Miscellany News, “Stick to your own thoughts, and make sure they are your own thoughts.”