COCAWORLDS at the UN

COCAWORLDS was a curatorial project by Liana Collective that reclaimed the coca leaf as a sacred, political, and cultural plant rooted in Andean-Amazonian territories. First presented at the United Nations Headquarters and later at Open Society Foundations in New York, the exhibition called for a critical reassessment of global narratives surrounding coca and urged the international community to address the historical injustice of its 1961 classification as a narcotic.

Co-sponsored by the Permanent Missions of Colombia and Bolivia to the UN, with support from the Colombian Ministry of Cultures and Open Society Foundations, the exhibition featured eight artists working in close relationship with Indigenous and peasant communities in coca-growing regions. Their works challenged colonial framings of the coca leaf, presenting it not as raw material for cocaine, but as a being with agency, a symbol of resilience, and a tool for spiritual and political continuity.

Artists Aimema Uai, Edinson Quiñones, Tatiana Arocha, Alejandra Delgado, Wilson Díaz, Andrés Domínguez, Miguel Ángel Rojas, and the collective NOMASMETÁFORAS used installation, performance, sculpture, and painting to open up new imaginaries around the coca plant. Their pieces—ranging from ceremonial actions and ancestral landscapes to dreamlike installations—wove together stories of healing, memory, and resistance, rooted in coca’s enduring presence across generations.

This exhibition formed part of a long-term curatorial investigation led by Liana—comprised of Angélica Cuevas, Giselly Mejía, and Juan Pablo Caicedo—that connects artists, Indigenous knowledge holders, and transdisciplinary thinkers. The project affirms the coca leaf’s value as a plant of power, medicine, and sustenance, while opposing the stigmas imposed by decades of prohibitionist policies.

At a critical moment when the international community is reviewing the status of the coca leaf under global drug control regimes, COCAWORLDS stood as a symbolic and political act of repair—and an invitation to listen to the voices that have long resisted erasure under the so-called war on drugs.

Photo: Mariana Reyes for Liana Collective

Photo: Mariana Reyes for Liana Collective

Photo: Mariana Reyes for Liana Collective

Photo: Mariana Reyes for Liana Collective

Photo: Mariana Reyes for Liana Collective

Photo: Mariana Reyes for Liana Collective

UN Headquarters, New York. November 4 – 8, 2024. Photo by Mariana Reyes for Liana Collective.