Join us for a tour of our new exhibition Barbarella’s Kiss led by the Bolivian artist, archivist and activist David Aruquipa Pérez. In this event, Perez will discuss a range of images presented in the exhibition and the history of Las Chinas Morenas, feminine performance characters in the fiestas populares, popular street carnivals that have taken place across the plurinational state of Bolivia over the past 75 years.

The discussion will explore the cultural and political significance of these performers and the impact of their work on contemporary LGBTQIA+ rights amongst first nations and Latinx communities across the Andes region. Led by project co-curator Aitor González Valencia, and Curator: Exhibitions and Events at Auto Italia, Milda Batakyte.

The event will be bilingual with discussions in Spanish translated live into English. Free to attend, no booking necessary.

David Aruquipa Pérez (b. 1971, Bolivia) is an artist, archivist and human rights activist living in La Paz, Bolivia. Pérez is the National Head of Cultural Management at the Cultural Foundation of the Central Bank of Bolivia. He is the author of La China Morena: Transvestite Historical Memory (2012), and co-authored Collective Memories: The History of the LGBT Movement in Bolivia, (2012). He has published several essays, including ‘The aesthetic revolution of La Familia’ (Galán, 2016), and Trans and queers at the ‘First Planetary Summit on Decolonization and Depatriarchalization’, Bulletin of the French Institute for Andean Studies (2015).

Aitor González Valencia (b. 1994, Spain) is an artist based in London. His work explores themes of queer desire, storytelling, personal histories and collective memory. He has recently presented work at FORMA Editions, London (2022); Movement Radio (2022); Robert’s Gallery, Glasgow (2022); Ridley Road Project Space, London (2022); Austrian Cultural Forum, London (2022); PINK, Manchester (2022), Café OTO, London (2022); Yorkshire Sculpture International, Leeds (2019) and Fran Reus Gallery (2018).