Spatial Poems at Mass MoCA
Cecilia Vicuña, Lola Ayisha Ogbara, and Sam Frésquez.
By: MOCA - Mar 19, 2026
MASS MoCA is pleased to present Spatial Poems, a communal exhibition in three concurrent parts developed by CEI Fellow Marissa Del Toro in collaboration with guest curators Ninabah Winton and Jamillah Hinson. The exhibition features the work of artists Cecilia Vicuña, Lola Ayisha Ogbara, and Sam Frésquez.
Cecilia Vicuña’s ‘precarios’ – a series of multidisciplinary works composed in part of sculptures made out of debris and in part collective rituals of dissonant sound serve as the overarching conceptual framework for the three interrelated projects, with curators and artists responding to the many themes Vicuña’s works evoke. The artists and artworks explore ephemerality, memory, and cyclical repetition through a range of materials and compositional approaches.
Together, the exhibitions can be understood as a score or spatial poem, created by curators and artists working in a euphonious rhythm. Spatial Poems inspires a dialogue on care, social relations, and the organization of new forms of being and processes as an act of refusal to the current precaritization of the art world.
“When I was first invited to participate in the Curatorial Exchange Initiative, I knew that I wanted to invite other curators to take part in this opportunity,” says Del Toro. "My proposal for Spatial Poems was conceived from a space of care and collaboration, and my belief that working with others creates something unique that could not be envisioned alone. The works showcased in this exhibition exemplify this ethos, and build off of one another to create a whole that has a meaning beyond the sum of its parts.”
Cecilia Vicuña: union of three, curated by Del Toro herself, is rooted in Vicuña’s 60-year art practice of ‘precarios’ or ‘Arte Precario’ — small assemblages made from discarded and fragmented materials conceptually foregrounded in ephemerality, intangibility, and evanescence. Born in 1948 in Santiago, Chile, and based in New York City, the pioneering visual artist, poet, filmmaker, and activist has focused on various political issues, from the fascist Pinochet era of Chile to the present environmental destruction. Cecilia Vicuña: union of three presents a selection of ‘precario’ and quipu sculptures, including her monumental Quipu Desaparecido 2 / Disappeared Quipu 2 (2018) and Balsa Snake Raft to Escape the Flood (2017), alongside films, texts, and sound.
Lola Ayisha Ogbara: Scars Insist on Being Remembered, curated by Jamillah Hinson in collaboration with Del Toro, is an exercise in care that explores Black movement, veneration, and sonic experimentation, presented through imagined geographies and naturally forming archives rooted in the artistic and cultural traditions of post-structuralism in Black American and African diasporic communities. With a conceptual practice standing at the intersection of non-Western epistemologies and bodily topographies, Ogbara explores the philosophical poetics of the scar as both a visual language of fugitivity and an imprint of resistance through material and compositional investigations.
Sam Frésquez: * curated by Ninabah Winton, invites viewers into a dreamlike exploration of nested realities — a literal and metaphorical journey through time, memory, and intergenerational knowledge. Beginning with a life-sized kitchen that visitors can physically enter, the installation unfolds as a sequence of six increasingly miniaturized versions of the same space. Each contains meticulously crafted furnishings that shrink proportionally until reaching the smallest room, which is merely inches tall. This recursive architectural experience creates a visual tunnel that allows viewers to contemplate the compression and expansion of lived histories.
About the Artists:
Cecilia Vicuña (b. 1948 in Santiago, Chile; lives and works in New York, NY and Santiago, Chile) integrates practices of poetry, performance, Conceptualism, and textile craft in response to pressing concerns of the modern world, including ecological destruction, human rights, and cultural homogenization. Born and raised in Santiago, she was exiled during the early 1970s after the violent military coup against President Salvador Allende. This sense of impermanence, and a desire to preserve and pay tribute to the indigenous history and culture of Chile, have characterized her work throughout her career.
Lola Ayisha Ogbara is a Nigerian American conceptual artist from Chicago, Illinois. Her practice explores the haptic sub/conscious, racialized voyeurism, and transcendental sonic experiments. Ogbara has exhibited in art spaces nationwide, including Split My Sides, The Luminary, St. Louis, MO (2020); Skin + Masks III, Kavi Gupta + EXPO Chicago, Chicago, IL (2023); Kemper Museum, Fairyland, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, FL (2021); and Kristen Lorello Gallery. She has also received residencies, fellowships, and awards from Alfred University, Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago, the Coney Family Fund, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, and many more. She has earned a BA from Columbia College Chicago and an MFA from Washington University, Sam Fox School of Art and Design in St. Louis, MO.
Sam Frésquez (she/they) was born in Mesa, Arizona. Frésquez currently lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut. Frésquez received her MFA in Sculpture at Yale in 2025 and her BFA from Arizona State University in Intermedia Art in 2019. Most recently, she was included in Get In The Game: Sports, Art, and Culture at SFMoMA, which will go on to travel to the Perez Art Museum in Miami and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas. They have participated in numerous residency programs, including Xico Galeria (2017), Haystack Mountain School of Craft (2019), New York Arts Practicum (2019), Vermont Studio Center (2019), MASS MoCA Assets for Artists (2019), and CALA Alliance (2022). Along with her work, she shares a collaborative practice with Merryn Omotayo Alaka entitled Hairland (2017-present). Lisa Sette Gallery represents Frésquez.
About the Curatorial Exchange Initiative Spatial Poems, curated by fellow Melissa Del Toro, is part of MASS MoCA’s Curatorial Exchange Initiative (CEI), an exploratory pilot for how contemporary museums work collaboratively with curators and artists, whose diverse practices and knowledge can be exchanged, supported, and deepened. CEI invited six fellows, including independent and institutionally-based curators working in the United States and Puerto Rico, to realize curatorial projects at MASS MoCA the first of which, Steve Locke: the fire next time, was curated by Evan Garza (August 3, 2024 – November 8, 2025), followed by Zora J Murff: RACE/HUSTLE, curated by Terence Washington (December 6, 2025 - Winter 2026). As part of the program, CEI fellows receive the support of MASS MoCA’s curators, art fabrication and public programs teams, and with other key staff to realize exhibitions that will be mounted at, and supported through, MASS MoCA over the next five years. Among the defining features of the fellowship is its emphasis on curatorial exchange — intellectual, experiential, cultural, interpersonal, and institutional. MASS MoCA provides direct support for research, travel, residency, and commission/studio time for the artists each fellow is working with, and an annual stipend for the fellows that spans a two to three year period. The three additional CEI fellows are Ryan N. Dennis, Michy Marxuach, and Risa Puleo.