Home
Street
An Artistic Objection to Eurocentric Narratives: “Our Place in These Worlds” at Elizabeth Xi Bauer

An Artistic Objection to Eurocentric Narratives: “Our Place in These Worlds” at Elizabeth Xi Bauer

Having a special place on London’s contemporary art map, Elizabeth Xi Bauer gallery is preparing to host a highly collective exhibition fundamentally questioning the concepts of identity, migration, and belonging between August 21 and September 27, 2026. Born out of a shared dialogue between artists Esvin Alarcón Lam, Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín, and Simón Vega, and shaped under the curation of Maria do Carmo M. P. de Pontes, “Our Place in These Worlds” stands out with its non-hierarchical structure. In today’s world, which lies at the center of debates on migration and cultural polarization, the exhibition directly objects to Eurocentric ideas of belonging while confronting the colonial past and waves of migration, opening up a multi-layered space against exoticizing approaches that fixate identity.

Traveling across different geographies thanks to a sustainable dialogue among the artists themselves, this project transitions to a new phase at its London stop. Having initially started in 2023 at Sol del Río Gallery in Guatemala City with a text by Maya K’iche’ anthropologist María Jacinta Xón Riquiac, and subsequently moved to Liliana Bloch Gallery in Dallas in 2025, the exhibition deepens even further at Elizabeth Xi Bauer with the participation of curator Maria do Carmo M. P. de Pontes. While the exhibition includes works from previous editions as well as pieces that will meet the audience for the first time, a special interview to be published reveals the shared production ground of the artists and the curator.

Esvin Alarcón Lam, one of the artists featured in the exhibition, examines the movement of symbols across geographies and cultural heritage in his interdisciplinary practice. Focusing on the Chinese diaspora in Central America by tracing his maternal grandfather, the artist blends personal memory and ancestral heritage through performance, video, textiles, and sculpture. Rather than a fixed definition of self, Alarcón Lam highlights a hybrid state of identity shaped by encounters, revealing the intergenerational transformation of images.

Participating in the project with his textile-focused production, Antonio Pichillá Quiacaín feeds on indigenous knowledge systems rooted in Tz’utujil Maya heritage. Bringing weaving structures together with cosmological understandings carried by fabric and the production process, the artist treats weaving as a living system establishing a connection with land and community. Tearing down the hierarchical walls Western thought places between fine art and craft, Pichillá presents traditional weaving practices as a contemporary claim for rights and a form of expression.

Questioning postcolonial conditions and future fictions, Simón Vega constructs speculative spaces by bringing everyday objects and do-it-yourself (DIY) technologies together. Ironically criticizing illusions of progress and development, Vega shatters future projections imposed by global power centers on peripheral geographies through humor and critique. These interwoven approaches of the three artists disrupt established narratives, presenting a powerful invitation to rethink our place in the world.