Ep. 71 - After the Silence (Wayqeycuna)

Gabrielle Martin chats with Cecilia Kuska about her work as a producer as well as Wayqeycuna, coming up at the 2026 PuSh Festival and co-presented by Latincouver: February 6 and 7 at the Roundhouse in Vancouver, BC. Show Notes Gabrielle and Cecilia discuss:  The work of Tiziano Cruz and how Cecilia's understanding has been shaped by his process and artistry How performance can be political without losing its complexity of creativity What it means to hold the space with theatrical work How community engagement is realized and makes sense of each locality Previous times at PuSh Cecelia's own practice to find what is on the margins Different barriers and cultural policies within other countries The approaches that guide your own model and curatorial thinking How curation is about asking and listening How to support new producers and artists The wider landscape and artistic futures of contemporary Latin American performance About Wayqeycuna Like a quipu—the intricate system of knotted cords used by Andean peoples to record memory and knowledge—Wayqeycuna traces Argentinean artist Tiziano Cruz's path back to his childhood in the Andean north. Through a poetic layering of testimony, ritual, and performance, Cruz reassembles fragments of collective and personal history, each knot an invocation of ancestry, each gesture a measured rebellion against erasure. Drawing from archival research and community memory, the work reflects on the violent devastation of cultural and communal life under neoliberalism and enduring racial hierarchies.  As the final piece in Cruz's trilogy Tres Maneras de Cantarle a una Montaña (Three Ways of Singing to a Mountain), which includes Soliloquio (I woke up and hit my head against the wall) presented at the 2023 PuSh Festival, Wayqeycuna unfolds as an act of return and repair: a lament for what has been taken, and a celebration of what persists. About Cecilia Cecilia began her career in the arts as an independent photographer, cinematographer, and combined arts student, producing exhibitions and short films. This personal exploration soon expanded into a collaborative impulse: she found herself increasingly drawn to supporting others in bringing their artistic visions to life, always guided by a sensitive and creative eye for detail. Over the past 15 years, she has developed and produced cultural projects across the globe, working at the intersection of disciplines and identities, with a strong commitment to international collaboration, contemporary creation, and institutional transformation. Land Acknowledgement This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver. Cecilia joined the conversation from Brussels, Belgium. It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself. Credits PuSh Play is produced by Ben Charland and Tricia Knowles. Original music by Joseph Hirabayashi. Show Transcript