Gala Porras-Kim

Gala Porras-Kim is an interdisciplinary artist whose work with cultural and ethnographic objects calls into question who has agency to interpret history. Her work spans drawings, sculptures and installations that challenge institutions to reassess their role as stewards of history and culture. Through artworks often informed by direct engagement with museums and their staff, she aims to shift policies regarding the ownership of objects, as well as their care and presentation in a culturally sensitive way that also honors the intent of museums that serve as public archives of the human record. Ms. Porras-Kim’s works range from meticulous drawings to installations that morph through exposure to natural elements, echoing the physical transformation of museum objects that conservators diligently work to make immutable.  

Ms. Porras-Kim’s extraordinary practice encompasses dialogue with collecting institutions regarding the intentions and ownership of an artifact’s creator. This correspondence has been the subject of several works, including with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History regarding Mesoamerican monoliths extracted from the Pyramid of the Sun, in which she offered her full-scale replicas as a form of reconstruction.  Her letter to Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology regarding ritual objects dredged from Mexico’s Sacred Cenote of Chichén Itzá put in motion a series of artworks and exhibitions that demonstrate to audiences that objects morph, decay and shift in cultural relevance over time.  

Ms. Porras-Kim has shown her celebrated work in a spate of exhibitions across the globe, including in Seoul, São Paulo, London, Mexico City, Los Angeles and New York.