Body Omens, a solo exhibition by Catalina Tuca with a guest performance by Mónica Palma, and curated by Elisa Gutierrez Eriksen.

Tuca’s work is based on the collection of objects and their multiple mediated representations to explore the intersections of geographic identities, collective memories, and systems of collaboration and participation.

Based on a collection of objects shaped by human use, Body Omens presents a speculative investigation in which observing shapes, folds, and erasures reveals information and spaces for interpretation. Over the past five years, Tuca has collected, analyzed, cataloged, and interpreted forms in objects such as chewing gum or used soap bars, as imprints of bodies. The marks and forms left on these objects are identified and classified as oracles, offering insight into the people associated with them and creating a comprehensive speculative divination system.

Echoing forms of divination like tasseography, cartomancy, or floromancy, Tuca’s project creates a direct connection between people and the objects they use, seen beyond their functional roles, intersecting history, culture, and tradition with fictional and intuitive narratives and forms of knowledge.
Through display strategies that heavily mimic institutional museum conventions, soap and chewing gum are presented as precious archaeological artifacts in a space that merges a museum and a conservation laboratory, integrating the objects with intervened photography to illustrate speculative classification and oracle-reading methods. The display highlights the connections among collecting, accumulating, archiving, and preserving, presenting these objects as revelations of hidden knowledge.

Photos by Pratya Jankong