Be the first to attend this event.
Join us for a reception and artist talk to celebrate the opening of the exhibition Frente a la vida / Facing Life. The event will feature a conversation between writer Nicole Kaack and artist Victoria Martinez, followed by a reception.
Frente a la vida / Facing Life is an exhibition of murals and ceramic paintings by artist Victoria Martinez that responds to the life and work of Peruvian poet and activist Magda Portal (1900–1989). Drawing on Portal’s first book of poetry, Una esperanza i el mar (Hope and the Sea, 1927), Martinez’s paintings in Frente a la vida / Facing Life feature motifs borrowed from Portal’s body of work. Portal’s elegiac writing captured life’s dualities, integrating the hardships of incarceration in authoritarian Peru and deportation with the embodied ecstasies and anguishes of motherhood and romantic love. Rivers, tears, and the sea represent rupture and rebirth, plurality and unity, captivity and independence.
Extending these symbolic images, Martinez washes the wall with a painted panorama and floods the windows with transparent fields of color, heightening the permeability of the Poetry Foundation’s architecture and transforming it into an expressive, abstracted terrain. Bridging the near-century between today and the publication of Portal’s first book of poetry, Una esperanza i el mar (Hope and the Sea, 1927), Martinez memorializes Portal’s vital work and invites us to reflect upon change and that which endures.
This event is part of the Poetry Foundation’s fall 2025 season, Facing Life.
Additional Information
All Poetry Foundation events are completely free of charge and open to the public.
Advanced registration is encouraged.
The performance space is ADA-compliant and wheelchair-accessible.
The program will feature ASL interpretation.
For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.
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