The exhibition Buen Gobierno (Good Government) by Sandra Gamarra, is a collection of paintings, sculptures and other artistic formats that shows the artist's vision of the Spanish colonial period in Peru, and aims to show "what was the beginning of the Peruvian nation, but also the moment in which Spain itself finishes drawing itself, after the conquest of America." 

The exhibition will be on display at Madrid's Sala Alcalá 31 from Sept. 21, 2021 to Jan. 16, 2022. 

In her work, Gamarra addresses the way hegemonic discourses to this day "have obviated and made invisible" the experiences of native and mestizo cultures.

All her works start from ‘decolonization,' a concept that points out the colonial legacies that persist in the contemporary imaginary.

"Anibal Quijano, a Peruvian thinker, understands that the colonial system of government has been maintained to this day and calls it 'the coloniality of power,'" Gamarra said in an interview with EFE.

In a nod to the concept, her exhibition owes its name to the famous manuscript First Chronicle and Good Government, a document that sought to portray the Andean colonial reality and denounce abuses and exploitation by the colonizers and was sent to the King of Spain.

The aesthetic line of his sample emphasizes the color red, and almost no faces or other forms can be seen. The decision marks a break with traditional painting (brought from the West during the colonial period), "which is not a product of the native culture," said Gamarra.

Although she works on the history of Peru, Buen Gobierno is also a denunciation of what is happening in Latin America as a result of the colonization process and how we find this logic even in the institutions throughout the territory.

Gamarra denounces how the richest countries "find fruits and cheap labor, from which corrupt politicians benefit in this new coloniality."