Extract from ABC News
Hernández's latest work, Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo, draws on the strong tradition of political protest in Venezuela. (Supplied: AGNSW/Jenni Carter)
There 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.
"But mostly, it's the people and the connection to my childhood home and my family."
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).
A strong tradition of protest
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."
A growing archive
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.
"In her contribution, she takes the protest song archive back to the 16th century, and she invokes a living memory of songs of labour and musicalised prayers."
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 falling and other everyday sounds in Hernández's hometown — the artist made 10 years ago, when she last visited Venezuela, composed into the mix by Melbourne sound engineer Thom Pringle.
"They're quite diverse, the contributions, but they also speak to each other," she says.
"I wanted to allow people to be able to express something personal that also reflects on the collective."
Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo features the second verse, El segundo verso, of Hernández's textile banners. (Supplied: AGNSW/Jenni Carter)
Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo also includes a series of textile banners, hung from the ceiling, bearing fragmented phrases from Venezuelan protest songs Hernández has reworked into a new verse.
"The idea is that these verses keep on building over time … The textiles keep amassing, and the collaborative sound fragments do as well, in order to continue this living archive," Hernández says.
"I don't know if it'll ever end."
Art as protest
So, does Hernández consider her work as a form of protest?
"Definitely," she says.
"It has been since I started making it. I think art's a powerful form of self-expression and protest, and I think that the message can be the work.
"And for me, the message in these works is also about sharing our vast cultural traditions and preserving them in the diaspora."
Like many of her compatriots, Hernández has had to observe the recent political crisis in Venezuela from afar.
"Since I've left the country, I haven't stopped seeing what's happening in Venezuela," she says. "I have family there still."
These connections, made distant by geography, are nourished through art.
"So much of [my artistic process] … is based off family stories, anecdotes, relationships and a desire to preserve an aspect of our everydayness, even though we're all physically apart," Hernández says.
"It's an everyday practice."
Para verte mejor, en todo tiempo (To see you better, at all times) is at AGNSW until June 21.
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