La ceniza ya no recuerda qué causó el incendio. / The ash no longer remembers what caused the fire.

Claudia Martínez Garay and Arturo Kameya

La ceniza ya no recuerda qué causó el incendio. / The ash no longer remembers what caused the fire.

Born 1983, Ayacucho, Peru; lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Born 1984, Lima, Peru; lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

In La ceniza ya no recuerda qué causó el incendio. / The ash no longer remembers what caused the fire., each room of the Mattress Factory’s 516 Sampsonia Way building has been transformed into a narrative environment that brings together Claudia Martínez Garay and Arturo Kameya’s distinct approaches to space, materials, and imagery. Drawing on their shared Peruvian heritage, this collaborative presentation is deeply rooted in lived experience, offering layered visual interpretations of the region.

Visitors pass through nine interconnected rooms across three floors, where new and commissioned works converge around the mythologized figure of Túpac Amaru II—an Indigenous leader and descendant of the last Inca ruler Túpac Amaru. Best known for leading the final major rebellion against Spanish colonial rule, his actions became a lasting symbol of emancipatory movements across the Americas.

You might experience these constructed spaces as a sequence of encounters, each unfolding like a layered memory or a threshold into another world. Martínez Garay’s tuftings and acrylic paintings draw deeply from archival Andean imagery, where fragments of the past and future gather, overlap, and begin to speak anew. In a luminous, circular yellow room, works from her ongoing Pacha series emerge as both citation and transformation—echoing historical engravings and colonial visual language while opening onto the Quechuan concept of “pacha,” where time and space are intimately entwined. She describes encountering these archives as “they appear—across different years, motives, and formats,” emphasizing her interest in re-reading (or even misinterpreting) them to bring forgotten histories back into orbit.

Works such as Agavote (2022), made of sublimated aluminum, emerge from soil-like landscapes that blur the boundaries between interior and exterior space. Kameya’s contributions unfold as atmospheric architectures, where space itself seems to hold resonance and vibration. His desaturated palette recalls the plastered adobe houses of his childhood neighborhood. Found and sculpted objects—painted plastic cockroaches, mechatronic entities, and ceramic chickens—populate debris-filled interiors reminiscent of schools or offices, shaping the viewer’s experience through light, texture, and rhythm, a choreography of tonalities.

Commissioned by the Carnegie Museum of Art for the Carnegie International, La ceniza ya no recuerda qué causó el incendio. / The ash no longer remembers what caused the fire. is presented at the Mattress Factory Contemporary Art Museum.

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Claudia Martínez Garay (b. 1983, Ayacucho, Peru) and Arturo Kameya (b. 1984, Peru) are Peruvian-born artists working between Lima and Amsterdam.

For their collaborative presentation at the Mattress Factory, Martínez Garay and Kameya explore Peruvian identity in relation to colonial legacy, examining how state power, cultural extraction, and historical narratives shape collective memory. Both artists are known for their immersive, thought-provoking exhibitions. Kameya’s "Opaque Spirits" (2024) at Marres, Maastricht (NL) transformed the venue into a haunting meditation on state failure and spiritual afterlife, while Garay’s "Wakchakuna", presented at Nottingham Contemporary (UK) in 2024 evokes an excavated grave, revealing sacrificed and funerary objects emerging from soil, sand, and rubble.

Their work has been featured in major international exhibitions, including Sharjah Biennial 16: To Carry; Prospect.6: The Future Is Present; the 16th Istanbul Biennial: The Seventh Continent, the 2018 New Museum Triennial: Songs for Sabotage, and the 2021 New Museum Triennial: Soft Water Hard Stone, among others.

This upcoming exhibition at Mattress Factory is presented in collaboration with Carnegie Museum of Art as part of the 59th Carnegie International. Learn more about the collaboration here.

Established in 1896, the Carnegie International is the longest-running exhibition of international art in North America. Organized every four years by Carnegie Museum of Art, the Carnegie International is a dynamic curatorial platform that surveys how art and artists respond to the critical questions of our time. The 59th Carnegie International, which will run from May 2, 2026, through January 3, 2027, brings together new commissions, existing works, and projects by established and emerging artists working internationally, domestically, and locally. The exhibition, which will be accompanied by a major catalogue and public programs, will transform galleries and public spaces in the museum and extend to partner institutions that anchor the cultural landscape of Pittsburgh’s North Side.