otras montañas, las que andan sueltas bajo el agua

The exhibition otras montañas, las que andan sueltas bajo el agua [other mountains, adrift beneath the waves], curated by Yina Jiménez Suriel, was born as the culmination of the three-year research project The Current IV Caribbean 2023–2025, which interwove geology, memory, and practices of resistance in the Caribbean, offering a reflection on the Ocean as a transformative space. otras montañas, las que andan sueltas bajo el agua [other mountains, adrift beneath the waves], first exhibited at Ocean Space in Venice in 2025, is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Panama (MAC Panama) from March 5 to August 16, 2026, under the co-curation of Yina Jiménez Suriel and Juan Canela. The project aims to identify and share the aesthetic strategies that emerged from the Maroon experience in the Caribbean, referring to the cultural and expressive practices developed by communities of formerly enslaved Africans who escaped colonial plantations and forged autonomous ways of life.

The project is centered on the study and circulation of aesthetic strategies, of ways of creating meaning through art, symbolism, spatial practices, and sensory expression, that emerged from the Maroon community in the Caribbean. The survival of this community required not only political resistance but also the development of distinctive cultural, artistic, and environmental practices. By identifying these aesthetic strategies, the project seeks to make visible how Maroon communities transformed resistance into enduring forms of expression. These strategies include modes of storytelling, ritual, music, spatial organization, and relationships with the natural environment, all of which encode knowledge about freedom, survival, and collective identity. Emancipation here is understood not only as the historical abolition of slavery, but as an ongoing process of reclaiming autonomy, memory, and cultural agency in the aftermath of colonial domination. By foregrounding Maroon aesthetics, the project supports alternative narratives of Caribbean history; ones that emphasize self-determination, creativity, and resistance rather than victimhood. 

For Maroon communities, the Ocean was not merely a geographic boundary but a powerful presence: a route of forced displacement, a space of danger and possibility, and a source of sustenance, orientation, and spiritual meaning. Re-engaging with this oceanic dimension highlights how Maroon aesthetics are deeply tied to maritime knowledge and coastal ecologies, encouraging contemporary Caribbean societies to rethink their relationship with the Ocean as a site of memory, identity, and future possibility.

In The Current IV Caribbean 2023–2025, Yina Jiménez Suriel, mentor and curator of the cycle, collaborated with artists Nadia Huggins and Tessa Mars. Both presented their two new commissions in the exhibition in Venice: A Shipwreck is Not a Wreck and A Call to the Ocean, respectively, which transform mountains and shipwrecks into living spaces of knowledge, memory, and alternative futures.

The exhibition has taken shape within the framework of TBA21–Academy, the research platform of the TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, through The Current, the pioneering curatorial fellowship that nurtures collaboration and the exchange of ideas around the ocean. Each three-year cycle culminates in a debut exhibition at Ocean Space, the former Church of San Lorenzo, featuring new commissions.