Cecilia Vicuña, El Hilo Azul [The blue thread], January 22, 1972, Concón, Chile. El Hilo Azul is one of Vicuña’s first weavings in space, completed in the artist’s bedroom. All images courtesy the artist unless otherwise noted.

Cecilia Vicuña, Quipu in the gutter, 1989, street installation with thread, New York City. Photo: César Paternosto

Cecilia Vicuña, Cloud-Net, 1999, street performance and installation, Art in General, New York. Photo: César Paternosto

Cecilia Vicuña, Quipu Menstrual (El Plomo), 2006. Quipu Menstrual was originally conceived as a prayer for the glaciers destroyed by mining in Chile. It consists of a series of performances that began at the foot of the El Plomo glacier, and culminated at El Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda, Santiago, Chile, in 2006.

Cecilia Vicuña, Quipu Menstrual (La Moneda), 2006, performance detail, installation and performance, El Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda, Santiago, Chile, 2006. Photo: James O’Hern

Cecilia Vicuña, Quipu Austral, 2012, installation view, 18th Sydney Biennale, Australia, 2012. Photo: Moira Roth

Cecilia Vicuña, Disappeared Quipu, 2018, mixed media, raw-unspun wool, wire, climbing rope, video projection, small loudspeakers and a sound recording of Vicuña's quipu poems and songs, installation view, Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Cecilia Vicuña, Disappeared Quipu, 2018, mixed media, raw-unspun wool, wire, climbing rope, video projection, small loudspeakers and a sound recording of Vicuña's quipu poems and songs, detail, installation view, Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Cecilia Vicuña, Quipu Boogie-Woogie, 2018, dyed unspun wool, bamboo, thread, and wire, installation view, booth of Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Frieze Art Fair, New York. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, and Seoul

Cecilia Vicuña, Quipu Akon One, 2019, mixed media, unspun wool, open weave cotton gauze, mops, thread, bamboo, nylon thread, plastic trash, sticks and bones, installation view, Museo del Barrio New York. Photo: Lilah Dougherty