Cecilia Vicuña is a poet, artist, filmmaker and activist. Her work addresses pressing concerns of the modern world including ecological destruction, human rights, and cultural homogenization. Born and raised in Santiago de Chile, she has been in exile since the early 1970s, after the military coup against elected president Salvador Allende. Vicuña began creating “precarious works” and quipus in the mid 60’s in Chile, as a way of “hearing an ancient silence waiting to be heard.” Her multidimensional works begin as a poem, an image that morphs into a film, a song, a sculpture or a collective performance. These ephemeral, site specific installations in nature, streets and museums combine ritual and assemblage. She calls this impermanent, participatory work “lo precario” (the precarious); transformative acts that bridge the gap between art and life, the ancestral and the avant-garde. Some museums that have exhibited her work include: The Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Santiago; The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London; Art in General in New York, NY; The Whitechapel Art Gallery in London; The Berkeley Art Museum; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Vicuña has published twenty-two art and poetry books, including Kuntur Ko (Tornsound, 2015), Spit Temple, The Selected Performances of Cecilia Vicuña (Ugly Duckling Press, 2012), Instan (Kelsey Street Press, 2001) and Cloud Net (Art in General, 2000). Her Selected Poems is forthcoming from Kelsey Street Press, 2017. In 2009, she co-edited The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry, 500 years of Latin American Poetry. She edited ÜL: Four Mapuche Poets in 1997. She was appointed Messenger Lecturer 2015 at Cornell University, an honor bestowed on authors who contribute to the “Evolution of Civilization for the special purpose of raising the moral standard of our political, business, and social life.” She divides her time between Chile and New York.