Meet the artist turning Venezuelan protest music into art

Hernández's latest work, Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo, draws on the strong tradition of political protest in Venezuela. (Supplied: AGNSW/Jenni Carter) Link copiedShareShare articleThere are many things Nadia Hernández misses about her home country of Venezuela. The artist is from Mérida, a city of 200,000 located on an alluvial plain high in the Venezuelan Andes. "It becomes very sensorial, the things that you miss," she tells ABC Arts. "The list can be endless, from my childhood home to the sensation of being surrounded by mountains … to going hiking and smelling the different flowers and feeling the mist descend from the mountains when it's getting dark, when the night's falling. Hernández was born in Venezuela and moved to Tucson, Arizona — a city with "a very strong Latin American presence" — when she was nine. When she was 16, she moved to Brisbane, where she studied fine arts at the Queensland University of Technology. She now lives in Melbourne, where she is part of a growing Venezuelan community. Like many members of the Venezuelan diaspora, Hernández is unable to return home, even to visit, owing to measures put in place by the country's repressive political regime. One way Hernández can connect with her culture, however, is through her artmaking. Hernández won the Grace Cossington Smith Art Award in 2021 and was a finalist in the Ramsay Art Prize and the Sulman Prize in 2023. (Supplied: AGNSW) Two years ago, she began a project "tracing the history of Venezuelan protest music … [to create] an evolving archive of protest songs". Its latest iteration is Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo (To see you better, at all times), a multidisciplinary installation currently on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW). Venezuela has a strong tradition of protest, "especially embedded in sonic culture", Hernández says. In recent years, millions of people protested against the government of president Nicolás Maduro, who is currently in prison in the US awaiting trial for drug trafficking. The young Hernández grew up listening to Venezuelan protest music. "It's music that I still continue to listen to in my studio when I'm working," she says. "Often, it's where I gather my sense of strength or understanding as well. I feel like [that these songs hold] so much power and knowledge in the lyrics." In 2024, Hernández completed the one-month Fountainhead Residency in Miami, another major centre of the Venezuelan diaspora. (Supplied: AGNSW/Jenni Carter) Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo builds on earlier installations that appeared at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2024, and the TarraWarra Biennial and Art Basel Hong Kong in 2025. The project's overarching title, En todo tiempo, pays homage to a type of Venezuelan folk music known as gaita. "En todo tiempo" are the opening lyrics of La Grey Zuliana, a popular song recorded in the 60s by the famous gaita singer Ricardo Aguirre. Commonly played at Christmas, gaita — an improvised tradition which emerged from the working-class neighbourhoods of Zulia, a state in northwestern Venezuela — often reflects on current events and expresses political dissent. "It was really common for gaitas to … have elements of protest," Hernández says. "But it's not just in gaitas, it's also in salsa music, it's also in our folk music, it's also in our punk music. "It's been really interesting to see the large array of musical traditions that all have these political expressions." Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo comprises three elements: a textile collage, a soundscape and a mural spanning the walls of the gallery space. "The wall painting is site-specific, so it's the first time that it's accompanied this project," Hernández says. "It traces the journey that the project has taken, so it features the majority of the collaborators that are involved in the work." "What's exciting about the project at the Art Gallery of New South Wales is how I've been able to … include additional Venezuelan voices," Hernández says. (Supplied: AGNSW/Jenni Carter) These collaborators — Venezuelan artists and members of the global diaspora — have contributed to the 46-minute soundscape that accompanies the work. "[I invited] different artists to reflect on the political power of songs and to either recite fragments from lyrical phrases or offer whatever they like in terms of like a sound bite," Hernández says. Among the new additions to the soundscape in the AGNSW show is a five-minute clip recorded in Caracas by Venezuelan educator and cultural practitioner Eileyn Ugueto. "[Ugueto] is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of Afro-Venezuelan dance and singing and musical heritage," Hernández says. Fragments from a lecture by Venezuelan artist Abraham Araujo "tracing the shift from 90s compilation culture to a new era of sonic risk and avant-garde music … are interspersed with songs from a mix he created". The soundscape also features field recordings — of rain fall

Meet the artist turning Venezuelan protest music into art

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