OUR ROOTS, OUR VOICES 

Student Takeover at Whitworth Art Gallery, 11th December 2025

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All students across our creative courses were deeply inspired by the 'Santiago Yahuarcani: The Beginning of Knowledge' exhibition at the Whitworth Art Gallery. The themes explored in the work served as a catalyst for all students across our creative courses to develop responses which were reflected in their individual disciplines, ranging from TV and Film to Performing Arts, Media, and Visual Arts (Fashion).

 

This diversity of responses fostered interdisciplinary collaborations, mirroring the dynamics of the creative industries and the collaborative nature of professional practice. In the creative world, no artist works in isolation, but rather within a network of collaborative engagement, which is precisely what our learners experienced as they prepare for their careers.

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About Santiago Yahuarcani
 

Santiago Yahuarcani is a painter, storyteller, and writer from the White Heron clan of the Huitoto people. His work gives visual form to ancestral knowledge, representing mythical beings, spirits of the forest, and stories passed down orally through generations. Through his paintings, Yahuarcani asserts the presence and continuity of Indigenous cultures, making visible histories and cosmologies often silenced by colonisation.

The exhibition The Beginning of Knowledge presents paintings, drawings, and narratives that reflect both environmental concerns and cultural preservation. It highlights how knowledge is not only recorded in text, but through story, ritual, memory, and art. Santiago Yahuarcani: The Beginning of Knowledge | Whitworth Art Gallery​​​​​​​​​​​