Curatorships

Esperanza de León: Curating Through Community Knowledge

Trained outside of academia, Esperanza de León’s methodology combines deep listening, observation, and ancestral pedagogy. Advocating for educational models grounded in community knowledge, she served as educational curator for the Paiz Art Biennial, where she integrated peripheral territories such as Livingston and Chinautla into the broader artistic circuit.

Artistic Residency Body Territory. Closing of processes and presentation of results to the ancestors of the Q’eqchi’ people in the Lanquín caves (activity exclusive for residents, team, and selected guests), Lanquín, Alta Verapaz, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.

by María Elena Ventura

Wed 1 Oct, 2025

Guatemala

When a curator sits to listen to the song of a volcano, the whisper of fire, or the vibrant memory woven into a handmade textile, she is doing more than selecting artworks—she is igniting a narrative. That is how Esperanza de León curates: as a hinge that connects pieces not by imposing narratives, but by opening pathways for memories— long displaced—to speak for themselves. “I choose to be a hinge and work from that place,” Esperanza shared with me during a video call, “a place of tension, which has also brought challenges. But I knew that, and I choose it anyway.”

In Guatemala’s social, political, and cultural landscape, art is rarely far from tension. The country’s deep layers of inequality, historical violence, structural racism, and exclusion are mirrored in its art circuits, which often operates within elitist and urban logics. Against this backdrop, Esperanza de León’s curatorial path stands out as a distinct and powerful practice—one committed to mediation, education, and symbolic justice.

Artistic Pedagogical Creatory (CAP). Drawing class, Guatemala City, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

Esperanza left her umbilical cord buried in Alta Verapaz. She identifies as a working-class mestiza from the hood and does not claim the title of curator through academic training, but through a commitment to accompanying creation processes from the margins. She calls herself a curator to bridge worlds: connecting youth, children, and Indigenous communities with professional spaces of artistic validation. Her practice is grounded in walking territories, supporting young people and children, as well as and sustaining creative processes that many would not even recognize as “art.”

A turning point in her career unfolded in Q’eqchí territory, Alta Verapaz, during an artist residency organized by Maíz de Vida Association and supported by artist Valeria Leiva, who was then the NGO’s communication coordinator. The project began with a crucial question: What if art is also power?

Initially, the goal was to select Indigenous women from the Q’eqchí territory to develop contemporary artworks. But Esperanza quickly noticed a deep disconnect: the project’s language, institutional expectations, and even the notion of a “residency” were misaligned with r the community’s cultural codes and lived experiences. Instead of applying a superficial model of inclusion, she proposed a methodological shift: the residency became a process of collective mentorship.

Her practice is grounded in walking territories, supporting young people and children, as well as and sustaining creative processes that many would not even recognize as “art.”

Participants from the Ixqcrear collective—including Elena Caal, Ixmukane, Ixmayab Quib (audiovisual artists from Tac Tic), and photographer Roxana Mucú—were mentored by artists such as Reyes Josué Morales (a multidisciplinary artist who accompanied Elena) and Camila Juárez (photographer, researcher, and communicator, who mentored Roxana). Their artistic proposals centered on the body, personal memory, and the land.

At the end of the two-month residency, ceremonies were held in sacred caves like Lanquín. There, the works were presented to the ancestors, blurring the line between exhibition and spiritual exchange. In November 2022, the pieces were shown in the Lanquín caves, public spaces in Cobán, and finally in an exhibition at Xkape Kob, in Alta Verapaz. The exhibition incorporated traditional Q’eqchí harps, cacao, pine, flowers, tamalitos, and boj.

Walk of Love for Peace. Painting workshop with the children of Nueva Esperanza Chaculá, Huehuetenango, Guatemala, 2005. Courtesy of the artist.

Beyond this project, Esperanza’s methodology is grounded in long-standing ethical commitments. In 2005, she took part in the Caminata de Amor por la Paz (Walk of Love for Peace), an artistic journey following the 1996 Peace Accords that walked through roughly thirty rural mountain communities from west to east. The experience deepened her understanding of Guatemala’s cultural and ecological richness and solidified her belief that engaging with the “rural” is a political act.

These elements permeate her classes, curatorial projects, and theoretical presentations, offering ways to introduce what has been excluded to academic spaces, while resisting cultural erasure and whitening.

As educational curator for the 2023 Paiz Art Biennial, Esperanza pushed for the inclusion of communities such as Livingston, Rabinal, and Chinautla, overcoming logistical and geographic hurdles to insert local practices into the curatorial conversation. She has also conducted research for networks like Arte y Ciudadanías Críticas, highlighting pedagogical projects with Indigenous communities that reclaim and reinterpret ancestral knowledge.

 Artistic Pedagogical Creatory (CAP). Annual closing of activities with a ceremony of gratitude and recognition of youth, officiated by one of the parents. Guatemala City, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

Esperanza’s methodology is grounded in long-standing ethical commitments.

For Esperanza, curatorial methodology is a flexible tool that adapts to each territory. It starts with observation, empathy, and deep listening: walking through communities, understanding their codes, needs and paces. Through her work at CAP (Centro de Arte y Pedagogías), she has developed an educational model inspired by ancestral knowledges and community-based methodologies. Her curatorial framework is guided by thematic pillars and a commitment to dialogical, relevance and situated practices.

Currently, with support from the Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres, she is working to document and systematize her approach, while building a platform to spotlight other Guatemalan women artists-educators. More than just an archive, the project seeks to continue weaving community.

“We are valuable,” says Esperanza. “What we have to say matters.” This affirmation not only names us as women—it calls us to cast aside fear, take up space with our voices, create our own projects, claim our independence, and dare to create our own bodies of work. Esperanza de Léon invites us to be authentic, to trust in our capacities, and to understand that accompanying others is also healing. Curatorship from the margins can be a radical act of cultural mediation.

Esperanza de León is a psychologist, researcher, educational curator, and co-founder of the Creatorio Artístico Pedagógico (CAP) in Guatemala, an initiative that views art as a tool for holistic health. She contributes to magazines and specialized platforms such as A*Desk, Bisagra, Pedagogías Empáticas Indisciplinas Artísticas, Sentidotorio de Derechos Culturales, among others.

María Elena Ventura (Dominican Republic, 1996) is an educator, cultural manager, and emerging curator. She has worked on educational and curatorial projects that intersect art, memory, and territory, with a focus on community-based practices, the Caribbean, and arts education. She currently writes for and collaborates with cultural magazines and takes part in training programs on heritage and curatorship in Latin America and in Europe.

Translation: Jess Oliveira