January 11 - June 30, 2027
This exhibition is free and open to all, Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm.
Discover the connections between contemporary activism and Mesoamerican screenfold codices. Folded Voices / Voces plegadas: Practicing Symbiosis through the Handmade Book / Practicando la simbiosis a través del libro artesanal situates Latin American and diasporic accordion-form books within a long lineage of material memory keeping. By centering the works of contemporary artist-activists, integrating experiential events into the gallery, and extending that outreach to campus and community spaces, Folded Voices / Voces plegadas invites audiences to become co-creators through dialogue and collaborative art making.
Denise Massa, Visual Resources Curator, and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Latin American & Iberian Studies Librarian and Curator, in Rare Books and Special Collections at Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Libraries frame the screenfold structure as a site of symbiosis that sustains creativity, memory, and worldmaking across time and space. The bilingual exhibition features museum-quality facsimiles and academic-artisanal renderings of pre-Hispanic and colonial-era codices. These historical pieces sit alongside modern screenfolds and related art films by featured artists Paloma Núñez-Regueiro (Ann Arbor, Michigan) and Quique Avilés (Washington, DC). The gallery also showcases hand-assembled, accordion-form artist’s books created under the auspices of Ediciones Vigía (Matanzas, Cuba), among other works. Together, these diverse works bridge geographic and sociohistorial contexts within a single, vibrant, artistic ecosystem.
Building on their exhibited works, Núñez-Regueiro and Avilés will lead workshops and participate in dialogues with campus and community audiences. The Living Responsive Archive invites visitors to create their own sections within a screenfold installation allowing the piece to grow over the course of the exhibition through collective participation.
Learn more about Folded Voices / Voces plegadas and related events
About the Venue
The Hesburgh Library (main library) and its collections and services are open to the public. The Rare Books & Special Collections Exhibit Room is located on the main floor near the west entrance of the library and is open Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm. Visitors will be asked to leave the library by 8:00pm, when the building becomes available exclusively for the academic use of current Notre Dame students, faculty, and staff.
The library is designed to be physically accessible and includes step-free entrances, automatic doors, elevators with tactile input, accessible restrooms, and wheel accessible workstations and study rooms. For questions or more information about accessibility, including Assistive Technology and Alternative Formats, visit the library’s website or contact the Ask Us Desk at (574) 631-0290.
Visitors pay to park in designated Notre Dame lots during weekday business hours (Monday–Friday, 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) using the ParkMobile app. After 4:00 p.m. on weekdays, all weekends except home football games, and during holiday closures observed by the University, there is no charge for parking. Designated accessible parking is available nearby for visitors with valid disability parking permits. For more information on parking and navigating campus, see Notre Dame’s visit page.
Funding & Support
This exhibition and its associated programming are made possible with funding from Hesburgh Libraries Rare Books and Special Collections. Workshop venues and staffing support provided by La Casa de Amistad and Notre Dame’s Department of Art, Art History, and Design.
Folded Voices / Voces plegadas is a partner program of the 2027 Notre Dame Arts Biennial and is supported with funding from the Notre Dame Arts Initiative.
Image: Artists Paloma Núñez-Regueiro and Quique Avilés. Photos courtesy of the artists.