MULTIDISCIPLINARY ART EXHIBITION

APAPACHO
“Abrazos que detienen el tiempo / Hugs suspended in time”

by Sur-Collective

Opening party Friday 5 December, 6-8pm

Sur-Collective, a group of 5 Latin American artists, was founded in 2021 out of a need to create a sense of place and redefine the space used as migrant women and artists in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

“Todo lo que vive necesita caricia.” / “Everything that lives needs cuddles”  
— Gabriela Mistral. Chilean Nobel Prize in Literature. 

Latin America is a region that has learned to resist with its hands. Apapachar is a term from Nahuatl that means to hug, cuddle, or embrace someone with affection but beyond a simple physical touch, it is poetically defined as “caressing with the soul”. In this exhibition is a verb that has been kneaded, woven, painted, and repeated like a prayer and a love gesture. Un apapacho is to embrace until time stands still, to suspend the noise of the world to care for what trembles: memory, love, body and soul.   

This exhibition brings together a group of Latin American women who create from kindness and tenderness as a political force. In ceramics, clay becomes skin; in embroidery, thread sutures what history has torn apart; in painting and screen printing, caresses take shape and colour; in installation, the space itself opens up like an embrace. Each work is a refuge where the material recalls its tactile origin.  

Hands not only produce they protect, heal, summon. Here, art is not meant to just be contemplated, is created to be felt, to accompany and contain. This exhibition is a constellation of gestures that resist oblivion, a fabric of presences that claim the right to kindness. In times of haste, uprootedness and individualism, un apapacho is an act of resistance, a way of saying we are here for you, holding up the world with our hands. 
 
Members of Sur-Collective: 
Juliana Durán (Colombia) – Visual artist that explores the creation of objects and experimentation of mediums for her creative practice.  
Romina Ortega (Chile) – Visual artist that works with screen printing, engraving, drawing and tattooing.  
Jesu Vasquez-Lesser (Chile) – Transdisciplinary visual artist with a strong interest in painting, puppetry, textile art, and education.  
Catherine Guevara (Colombia) – Visual artist, her body of work comprises education, research, drawing and ceramic.  
Lina Castro (Colombia) – Industrial Designer and embroidery artist. She explores ways to expand embroidery beyond the hoop.  


Viewing Saturday 6 December 2025 - Saturday 21 February 2026

GALLERY PROGRAMMES

Dia de las Velitas - Day of the Little Candles

Opening candle party Friday 5 December, 6 - till late
Free | All welcome | Bring a candle
 

Join Sur-Collective during their exhibition opening event to celebrate Dia de las Velitas - Day of the Little Candles. A Colombian tradition, Dia de las Velitas brings the community together each December to light candles and make wishes for the coming year.

In conjunction with the opening of their exhibition APAPACHO in the Homestead Galleries.

We hope to see/hug you all there!