The exhibition consists of a series of black and white prints made by the artist of a group of barefoot nuns walking by the sea. Sonia Cunliffe, a photographer who is sensitive and attentive to the world around her, says that she recorded the photographs one cool summer morning, after unexpectedly coming across a group of nuns on the beach.   Seeing them, she did not hesitate to look for her camera and quickly return to record a spontaneous moment that was close to happiness.

The writer Fernando Ampuero, in his introductory text, says: ‘They, the nuns, who are married to God, and the sea, which lives in union with Neptune, the promiscuous pagan god who rules all waters, are looking at each other; the sea spreads the foam of agonising little waves that crawl meekly across the sand; and the nuns, trembling, hear the secret call of another mystery that seduces them. Is this what is happening? Perhaps. Maybe, but at what point did they feel the urge (read: the extreme need) to take off their shoes and dip their feet in the sea?

Ampuero adds: ‘Let us define the situation of the encounter as a sudden impulse, a pure joy, a tumult of emotions, or let us attribute it to the magic of the moment stopped, or to the deliberately forgotten modesty of young women who have devoted their lives to helping others, whether in medical posts or in clinics, or to sweetening the palate of sleepy old women or children with tantrums. Watch and think. Sonia Cunliffe only wishes to share through her photographs, which make up a brief narrative here, the simple and beautiful trance of enjoying the moments that enlighten us’.

Sonia Cunliffe (Lima, 1966) is a renowned visual artist whose work has been mostly related to photography, archival research, appropriation and enhancement. She studied Visual Arts and Photography at the Escuela Panamericana in Sao Paulo (Brazil), where she was a student of the prestigious photographer Otto Stupakoff, as well as Art History at the Tomie Othake Institute and History of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in Sao Paulo. She recently launched her first book A la izquierda, en el desvío  (To the left, on the detour) in September 2022.

She has participated in the Lubumbashi Biennale in the project ‘Toxicity, in the XIV edition of the Havana Biennial with La Encrucijada del hombre, una utopía vista en el tiempo (The Crossroads of humanity, a utopia seen in time) (2022), in the Biennial Independencia de Cusco, with the installation La gran Rebelión (The Great Rebellion) (2021) and in the Biennale de Fotografía Femenina de Mantua, Italy (2020).

Her most important exhibitions include Documentos Extraviados: niños de Chernóbil en Cuba (Lost Documents: Chernobyl Children in Cuba) (Miami Art Basel Mana Contemporary, 2016), Vigilar y castigar. Fotografías penitenciarias del siglo XIX (To Watch and Punish. Penitentiary photographs of the 19th century) (Rafael Pérez Hernando Gallery, ARCO Independent Exhibitions Circuit, Madrid), Un hombre y una mujer (A man and a woman) (Blanca Soto Gallery, ARCO CEI, Madrid), Fotografía Indeleble, el Imaginario de Teodoro Bullón (Indelible Photography, the Imaginary of Teodoro Bullón) (Pancho Fierro Municipal Gallery, Lima), Yeguas del Apocalipsis, Argentinos de París (Mares of the Apocalypse, Argentines of Paris) (Fundación Proa, Argentina), El Guerrillero Heroico (The Heroic Guerrilla) (SIART Bienal Internacional de Arte, Bolivia), No digas nada de lo que viste ayer anoche (Don’t say anything about what you saw last night) (Sede de la Divincri del Callao, Perú), Punto ciego (Blind point) (La Rebelde, 2021), Todos los nombres de Bullón [y los tiempos indelebles de Cunliffe]’( All the names’ of Bullon [and the indelible times of Cunliffe)(Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso, 2022) and La utopía y el mar (The utopia and the sea) (Galería NOW, 2023).

She participated as a lecturer at K’ANCHAY, II International Symposium on Research in the Arts (National University of Art Diego Quispe Tito of Cusco, 2023).