July 25 – September 6, 2025
Novem
The Main Gallery
Opening Reception for Members and Guests: Friday July 25th, 7 – 9 pm
Free admission
Claudia Chagoya is a Mexican interdisciplinary artist born in Zacatecas, Mexico, based in Calgary, Canada. Using materials rooted in Mexican culture and tied to various traditional rituals, Chagoya explores topics related to gender violence and the socio-political context in which the violence takes place. Her work combines: textiles, digital media, installations, and sculpture.
Haunting, provocative and disturbing, Chagoya’s multimedia installation, Novem, offers a unique vantage point on grief — an experience that is personal yet universal. The artist brings traditional ritual elements of her Mexican culture to the gallery space and transforms them into symbols of protest, mourning, and expressions of filial love.
In her immersive installation, Chagoya cleverly combines materials rooted in her Mexican past, such as rebozos (rectangular shawls used by Mexican women to protect their heads from the sun, to carry babies, or used in funerary services) with salt (symbol of purification and preservation), copal (Mexican incense), hair and sawdust, to ingeniously create a powerful statement about feminicide (the killing of women because of their gender). Chagoya explains that the attitude of neglect she has witnessed, towards women in Mexico, disrupts the grieving process and is the ultimate devaluation of life.
Rebozos take a central stage in the exhibition. Prominently displayed in the gallery are seven suspended frayed rebozos, dripped with water and crystallized salt. They hang like salt preserved corpses and serve as a powerful memento of how violence can leave us with crusty wounds and reduce us to bone.
Chagoya recalls her own family’s emotional erosion after facing feminicide, a personal story that has taken her years to unthread, in much the same way that she slowly and methodically frays the rebozos.
As Chagoya says: When much is lost, when the authorities’ corruption and negligence leave the families with no answers, Ruega por nosotras (Pray for us) is often uttered as a whisper from the tired, dried lips of the relatives of missing, murdered, women in Mexico.
Chagoya’s soundscapes around the exhibition combine murmuring prayers, water drips, petitions for justice, and invocations, which subtly resonate in the gallery space. They confront us with the reality that communities facing feminicides are often left to navigate the chaotic and disorienting justice system by themselves. Praying is their only support when authorities have stonewalled them.
Artists like Claudia Chagoya highlight the power of storytelling as a healing agent. Her compelling work reminds us that our role in times of profound grief is to bear witness to familial stories — even when it is uncomfortable. Chagoya’s exhibition offers us the space to talk about our own loss, our experience with gender violence, and how we can collectively support each other emotionally. Sharing our experiences can bond us and make us feel less alone.
Artist’s Biography
Claudia Chagoya (b. 1991) is a Mexican interdisciplinary artist born in Zacatecas in Mexico, based in Calgary, Canada. She holds an MFA degree from the University of Calgary (2019) and a BFA from Instituto Allende (2017) in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.
Her artistic practice explores topics related to gender violence and its socio-political background through the use of materials rooted in Mexican culture, such as: rebozos, salt, copal, and sawdust.
Chagoya has been an Artist-In-Residence at the Royal College of Art in London, UK, the Women’s Centre of Calgary, and at the Calgary Allied Art Foundation at cSPACE King Edward.
She is the recipient of the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society’s New Canadian Artist Award in 2022. Her artwork is featured in ARCHIVO, an archival digital platform focused on showcasing Latin American artists living and working in Canada. Chagoya’s compelling works have been the subject of several solo and group exhibitions in Mexico, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Top Image (detail): Rebozo IX (Mictlantecuhtli) and Rebozo X (Mictecacihuatl) from the series Novem, 2019, unravelled rebozos and salt
Photo courtesy of the artist
