The Soul of Objects

The Soul of Objects is the first dedicated museum exhibition in Germany to design and craft from Latin America. It’s a surprising statistic, and one that motivated show’s curator, Lujan Cambariere to make this exhibition happen. Cambariere is an experienced journalist and media figure from Argentina, who has been focused on Latin American design and craft for over twenty-years. Moving to Germany several years ago, she realized that there was a limited understanding about the design and craft scene in Latin America, and therefore little interest. This show offers an opportunity to change the narrative and misconceptions, with an extensive presentation of work by 56 artists from thirteen countries, featuring ritual objects, masks, furniture jewellery, fashion, installation, textiles and more. The Soul of an Objects represents the diversity and complexity of applied arts in Latin America, with work ranging from 1940s-to present day.

Some of the main themes of the exhibition include the importance of objects as talismans and pieces made for rituals, binominal design – figurines and dualist creatures that merge animal and human characteristics; ancestral design, that explores the connection and collaboration between designers and indigenous communities; recycling and upcycling materials as an instinctual process, and the use of natural materials. While it is impossible to impose any kind of generalization to craft and design from such a diverse region as Latin America, one thing many of these makers share is an interest in working with local communities on projects that reflect the shared contribution by designer and maker. Highlights of this include work by Brazilian artist Renato Imbroisi, who has been working with artisans for over thirty years, including hand-embroidery and weaving, or Peruvian designer Ani Alvarez Calderon, whose collection of beaded headpieces, El Cono, made in collaboration with Neyra Peréz, a traditional Iskonawa artist, transform an ancestral art into contemporary, wearable art. Paris-based Peruvian fashion label DNI, whose designs are directly influenced by their childhood and are often made in collaboration with communities in Peru, and the multi-generational project of Olga Fisch, from Ecuador.

The exhibition opens with a colourful projection by Catalina Estrada, an illustrator from Colombia, that sweeps people into the spirit and humanity of the work on view, and also gives a contextual view of region. For Cambariere, it was important that people not only see the diversity of design and craft, but its quality and its contribution, that pieces made by hand have as much value as something made on an industrial scale. There are currently plans for the exhibition to travel to Madrid for the 10th anniversary edition of Madrid Design week in February 2027.

A catalogue has been produced on the occasion of the exhibition: The Soul of Objects: An Anthropological View of Design (Experimenta Publishing).

The Soul of Objects is on view through September 27, 2026.

Grassi Museum of Applied Arts

@grassimak

@lujanCambariere