Guadalupe Maravilla (1)

Disease Thrower – Purring Monster with a Mirror on Its Back, 2022

Gong, steel, wood, cotton, glue mixture, plastic, loofah, and objects collected from a ritual of retracing the artist’s original migration route
Courtesy of the artist, P·P·O·W, New York, and mor charpentier, Paris

El Brujo Disease Thrower, 2024

Steel gong, cotton, glue mixture, plastic, loofah, oil on tin, and objects collected from a ritual of retracing the artist’s original migration route
Courtesy of the Servais Family Collection, Brussels

Pierna de Serpiente, 2023

Steel, wood, cotton, glue mixture, plastic, loofah, and objects collected from a ritual of retracing the artist’s original migration route
Courtesy of the artist and mor charpentier, Paris

Pour Les Ancêtres, 2024

Weaving. Courtesy of the artist
Creation for the 17th Lyon Biennale

Using a wide variety of media, Guadalupe Maravilla’s work explores his personal experience of migration and illness, recounting the story of his Journey alone as an eight year old boy from El Salvador to the United States after escaping the civil war and healing from his battle with cancer as an adult. His sculptures, paintings, drawings, performances and videos reference a cosmology of symbols that link his own journey to ancient and new models of healing. His work incorporates his spiritual practices — meditation, sound and food as medicine to heal the body, spirit and mind.

In resonance with the history of the Grand Hôtel-Dieu, as a former hospital, the artist and healer Maravilla envisioned a healing space for marginalized communities. Composed of materials and collected objects from sites across Central America and Mexico the works in the series Disease Throwers are “healing instruments”, that generate vibrational sounds from gongs of the same sound frequencies as the planets and elements like air and water. The sculptures are activated by the artist to envelop the listener in sound frequencies that encourage meditational healing processes. The eight hammocks featured in the installation are an invitation for the ancestors and spirits that protect us to take a moment of rest while the sculptures are activated in sound healing ceremonies.