Inframundi

"Inframundi is a catalogue of imaginary artefacts inspired bya personal story: that of a childhood spent in the presenceof an ancient pre-Columbian mummy. Drawing on thisformative memory, Elisa Valenzuela imagines the objectsone might need in the afterlife. Born from several years of research, the project is basedon the study of pre-Columbian, Oceanic, and ancient artcatalogues. The artist borrows their visual and descriptiveconventions and shifts them toward fiction, constructing aparallel archaeology in which imagination replaces scientificmethod.The book unfolds in chapters that echo the major spheres ofexistence: beauty, style, utensils, the rites of passage, rituals,childhood. Each section explores the gestures, beliefs, orneeds one might wish to carry into another world. Combs,sound amulets, ritual shoes, domestic tools, or articulatedtoys form an ideal funerary collection—plausible, yet entirelyimagined.Inframundi questions what objects retain from ourselves:gestures, beliefs, bonds, fragilities. In this re-inventedafterlife, they emerge as figure—companions, markers, orguides—extending what ties us to the world. The projectexplores the malleability of memory and archaeologicalnarrative, showing how a story can be reshaped differently.Created through a dialogue between artistic gestures andartificial intelligence, these artefacts adopt the codes ofancient relics while opening a fictional territory where newnarratives can emerge."