Flor de Maria Alumbra
A WOMAN's Gallery : Awakened
THE GALLERY OF PRESENCE
A Woman's Gallery awoke from a whisper of love; to plant a concept which would emerge as a place to celebrate women's contributions and accomplishments but more importantly the uniqueness of our being.
A place which would allow for the unheard voices of women to be heard and acknowledged through standing in the presence of their art.
This is our story
PROJECT OVERVIEW
A Woman's Gallery: Awakened is a project to house the art of Guatemala’s indigenous women, located in Alta Verapaz, the mountainous centre of Guatemala. There is increasing international recognition for the technical and symbolic sophistication of traditional arts, but artisan-artists remain disenfranchised and economically isolated. The project provides a centre for curation and connection to international markets, drawing on the architect’s knowledge of the areas social and cultural infrastructure, the culture and its peoples.
The design is an expression of the interdependent relationship between the program and site, manifesting the founding concept of a search for a new balance between humanity and the earth. Divided into two main parts, the building comprises the above-ground Gallery of Presence overlooking Río Cahabón and the underground gallery and administrative complex Emergence. Colours, materials and design motifs reflect the indigenous Maya culture and heritage of the architect. The project integrates locally appropriate engineering and construction technologies, achieving synergies that would enable the complex to be energy self-sufficient while using local and renewable materials for most of its construction.
DESIGN GENESIS
As a young child, I stood in awe of the resilience of the women around me, carrying on their heads baskets of produce as if they weighed nothing. I was waved to sleep on their backs as they washed mountains of clothes and tended to their children, resonating love and beauty. I longed one day to weave with my own hands the colourful fabrics in which they wrote their story.
Around the world, millions of women like these have been weaving for thousands of years, even though their cultures may never touch. We nurture, we create and we weave. We pass our stories in our folklore and mythology to our children through our weaving, just as our mother Earth continuously weaves the tapestry of life around us. We have been weaving life since life weaved us into the light.
I come from the land of Volcanoes, Guatemala, sited in the ‘waist’ of Central America. From the moment of birth, we feel the breathing of volcanoes trembling the land. We learn to acknowledge we are in the presence of something greater than ourselves as rivers of lava carve new land that allows for new life to be born.We learn to walk and laugh amongst the earth’s paradoxes and mysterious spirit. We learn to listen and see the earth as alive and with this a new layer of awareness and connection to the land is given, awakening us. From this a deeper love and humility is born in our being, and becomes part of all that we do. We believe we are part of a Living Earth, and she is part of us.
Even after centuries of change from numerous colonisations and devastations, most recently a civil war that included a genocidal campaign against the Indigenous Maya people, Guatemala resonates with an untamed love for life.
On another continent years later as I nursed my own daughter, swinging her in my ‘chal’, or sling, I reflected on what it was to be a woman and a woman in the world; of all that it is not said and not known of what women do. This unspoken silence reminded me of the murmurs of volcanoes, wanting to awake.
The design response for A Woman’s Gallery: Awakened began with an abstract sketches of two hands clinging and pulling from each other’s finger tips, as if one could not exist without the other.
'MY HANDS'- FLOR DE MARIA ALUMBRA
SKETCH,2016
It called me to reflect again on our relationship as human beings to architecture and the earth. One hand became the earth, the other hand the gallery, symbolically seeking an equilibrium. A balance deeply understood in traditional Maya culture. In a globalising world Architecture remains an art that manifests our humanity and worldview, that embodies the essence of our cultures. An art which can become a bridge to seek and find a new balance between the earth and ourselves.
A Woman's Gallery: Awakened invites us on a trans-formative journey of discovery of what the art of women's work is about, narrated by an architectural language which is both an expression and a manifestation of my Mestizo heritage and Maya ancestry.
RIO CAHABON, 2001 FLOR DE MARIA ALUMBRA
A visitor's journey to the the Gallery begins with many kilometres of unsealed roads winding up into the mountainous heart of Guatemala itself. In the intense humidity of the jungle the Gallery lies hidden until the last approach.
EMERGENCE UNDERGROUND AND THE GALLERY OF PRESENCE
Sited in central mountainous Alta Verapaz in Guatemala, Central America, the gallery is located along the sacred Rio Cahabón river downstream from nearby Semuc Champey. It comprises an underground complex, Emergence and the above-ground The Gallery of Presence.
APPROACHING THE WALK OF WOMEN
THE WALK OF WOMEN
The complex faces north, symbolically aligned to the North Star and centre of Mayan cosmos, the 'Heart of Heaven'. Entry is from the south by a 60m long approach The Walk of Women. A mosaic embroid the pavement forming the shape of a woman with a basket of produce on her head, leading the visitor down through the jungle and into the earth. Two angled ashed lava red walls are inscribed with every known first name given to women so that every woman may know this place is not without her.
The Walk of Women leads into a tunnel lit only by an illuminated strand of crystalline glass encased in the glass and concrete floor, recalling a molten channel of lava, mirrored in the ceiling above. The motif of lava becoming-rock flows throughout the building, weaving new paths, new hope, new life, a new balance.
MORPHOSIS
ENCOUNTER
THE GALLERY OF PRESENCE
N
MID LEVEL FLOOR PLAN
EMERGENCE
Visitors are called to be present to the diminishing light as they enter the underground darkness and climate controlled environment of Emergence.
Emergence comprises two large exhibition rooms Encounter and Morphosis with ancillary spaces catering for approximately 1200 people, including restaurants, meeting rooms, conference, lecture rooms, and administration offices.
Guatemalan Maya women, like millions of women throughout the world in both underdeveloped and developed countries, struggle to for equality even though their local culture and economy depends on them. The artisan work by the Maya women has been crucial in sustaining their culture, way of life and sense of self. Traditional fabrics are now known to be encoded with complex sacred and customary knowledge, yet their makers struggle for recognition or economic return.
A Woman's Gallery : Awakened was designed with the aim to provide a place for women to feel safe and supported to self-express freely. A place which educates the visitor of the beauty, richness and insights of traditional and modern art whilst providing a place where art can be traded fairly and valued with its proper cultural context. Emergence and Presence are therefore equipped to host educational and commercial events to connect artists with international perspectives and markets. Ancillary spaces support mentoring and community building.
ENCOUNTER - ROOM EXHIBITION 1
ENCOUNTER
The first of the galleries, Encounter, sits within 5m high underground limestone caves, cladded in recycled timber. Lit by a glass and steel hanging ceiling emulating the crater of a volcano, Encounter evokes the feeling of being within an eruption. Visitors contemplate the paradox of creation, a metaphor for reflecting on and considering what women have historically lived through and how healing may occur.
Encounter symbolises the eruption of voices. The architecture holds the space - allowing for their stories to be heard.
MORPHOSIS - ROOM EXHIBITION 2
MORPHOSIS
The second gallery, Morphosis, is a room for reflection and contemplation of what change can mean. Symbolised by the raining light shimmering through a glass ceiling echoing the crater now dissolving and morphing. Glass motifs scatter throughout the floor representing the passing of fire and new land now forming. Visitors are invited to reflect on the continuous evolution of women’s achievements as we stand in the presence of their art and stories.
THE GALLERY OF PRESENCE MID LEVEL FLOOR PLAN
ATRIUM
FOYER
THE GALLERY OF PRESENCE
Leaving the subterranean conditions of Emergence, visitors move towards the passively-cooled humid warmth of The Gallery of Presence.
The Gallery of Presence sits in full light, empty, placed to welcome every woman and man to stand alone in their own light, in their own shadow, in their own Presence.
Mayan jade-green crystalline glass ceiling and floor mosaics weave over a red lava floor that bleeds from Emergence, symbolising the creation of new land, new life.
ENTRY FOYER TO THE GALLERY OF PRESENCE
The gallery comprises 5 levels around a central atrium overhanging the cliff. Two mezzanine levels provide its visitors with breath taking views of the surrounding mountainous jungle. Two lower levels contain a fully-serviced theatre, light catering and visitors lounges with bridges leading into walkways cutting through the surrounding jungle.
The design solution for The Gallery of Presence was a lightweight ‘yang’ to Emergence’s masonry ‘yin’. A passively ventilated building using transparent solar glass which provides solar and thermal control whist generating power for the gallery. Construction is from a sustainable native bamboo specie with locally-fabricated steel junctions and white clad in aluminium composite panel. The colour in which all colours unite.
ATRIUM & THE HEART OF PRESENCE
In the centre of its floor lies a sculptural mosaic built within the glass, The Heart of Presence symbolising an open heart: one which is open to connection without labels or prejudice or fear.
ATRIUM AT GROUND LEVEL
The Gallery of Presence is a metaphorical bridge which represents the search for a balance between the earth and ourselves.
THE GALLERY OF PRESENCE - TOP OF THE CLIFF
THE GALLERY OF PRESENCE
One which cantilevers and is sustained from the earth, always looking towards the water, the horizon, and the heart of heaven. Looking to life.
One which has crystallised a story in its architectural language, but more importantly has aimed at connecting with us, whether provoking or inspiring us.
It has invited us to simply just be.
THE GALLERY OF PRESENCE - OVERLOOKING RIO CAHABON
WHY WE NEED GALLERIES DEVOTED FOR WOMEN TO EXHIBIT THEIR ART WORKS, IN THE WORDS OF DONNA JACKSON, DMJ STUDIO.
Galleries are these spaces, sacred spaces, that bring us into the worlds, thoughts, and ideas of others; getting viewers to think and see life more broadly, more vividly and through the eyes of others. We need more people to see life through the eyes of women. There is a part of me that does not like the thought of creating a gallery just for women. It has the potential of isolating, segregating. It is not inclusive. To be honest, like most women, I prefer to be an artist, not a female artist or woman artist, but we live in a society that doesn't understand or genuinely value the female experience. So many of our institutions that hold art, history, memory, and knowledge were constructed through the lens of men. We need spaces that show life from a woman's perspective. Galleries, like mine and Flor's, can create this balance and well-needed experience.
Having access to galleries like this will be critical to the future of our society and how women are viewed and treated. I sincerely feel if more galleries and art were available and celebrated, giving society access to see the vision of womanhood and feminity from a women's perspective, the inequalities, and abuse that happens to women may not exist.
The other reason galleries for women are of value is because still, in today's world, successful careers in visual art is dominated by men. Women who are just as talented are less celebrated partly because of less opportunity and our natural Platforms like women-focused galleries are necessary to help build equal opportunities until one day, we all value the talents of each other regardless of gender. Lastly, I think women's gallery spaces is a place for women to connect, work together and support one another.
What Flor has imagined and created takes combines traditional art on the walls and breathes it into the building itself, making the building a work of the art experience. It embodies birth, nurturing and cultivation of creativity. It is woman's creativity.'
Donna Jackson
Creating for Creation Sake
CONSULTANTS & ADVISORY TEAM
Ross Proud,
R.E.Proud & Associates Pty Ltd
Structural Engineer
Donna Jackson,
DMJStudio
Women's work Art Gallery, Droit US
© 2025 Flor de Maria Alumbra