UROS ISLAND

Grimanesa Amoros video thumbnail for UROS ISLAND

Location: Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts | Taichung, Taiwan, 2011
13 ft 7 in x 11 ft 2 in x 26 in
Stainless steel, diffusion material and reflective material, LEDs, custom lighting sequence, and electrical hardware.

UROS ISLAND is a light sculpture presented at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts as part of the Future Pass exhibition, its LED form evoking the organic delicacy of sea foam and the structural ingenuity of the pre-Incan Uros people’s floating reed islands, bringing one of Peru’s most enduring Indigenous traditions into dialogue with one of Taiwan’s most significant public art institutions.

Presented at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, one of Taiwan’s largest and most visited art institutions, UROS ISLAND reached a broad public audience as part of Future Pass, a landmark exhibition connecting contemporary artists across Asia and Latin America through shared explorations of cultural memory and identity.

Future Pass was a collaborative production of the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, the Today Art Museum in Beijing, and the UNEEC Culture and Education Foundation in Taipei, realized with support from the Fondazione Claudio Buziol and curated by Victoria Lu, making it one of the most ambitious cross-institutional contemporary art projects in Asia that year.

The work draws on two foundational experiences from Amorós’s childhood in Lima: the bubbles and foam of the Pacific coast, and her encounter with the Uros people of Lake Titicaca, whose forty-two hand-constructed floating islands represent one of the most extraordinary examples of Indigenous engineering and ecological adaptation in the world.

The sculpture appears to emerge naturally from the ground as if one with the earth, a quality Amorós achieves by rooting the work’s formal logic in the living, self-renewing structure of the reed island itself rather than imposing an external architectural form upon the space.

As a child growing up along the coast of Peru, Grimanesa Amorós was deeply drawn to the ocean. She was captivated by its rhythms, from the movement of the tides to the delicate formations of bubbles and sea foam. These early impressions left a lasting imprint on her artistic imagination.

Uros Island is inspired by the floating islets of Lake Titicaca, located in southeastern Peru. These islands are hand-constructed by the pre-Incan Uros people, who have long sustained their way of life on the lake’s surface. Made entirely from totora reeds, the islands support homes, boats, watchtowers, and communal spaces. They are a lasting example of Indigenous engineering and ecological adaptation.

Amorós brings these two influences together in Uros Island, a sculptural work that evokes both the organic delicacy of sea foam and the structural ingenuity of the reed islands. The installation appears to rise naturally from the ground, as if emerging from the earth itself. It invites viewers to consider the interplay between nature, culture, and technology.

Future Pass is a collaborative project presented by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, the UNEEC Culture and Education Foundation in Taipei, and the Today Art Museum in Beijing. It was realized with support from the Fondazione Claudio Buziol. The exhibition content was curated by Victoria Lu, Creative Director of the Today Art Museum.