Guadalupe Martinez: Becoming River, 2026, multi-channel video installation with sound.
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Curated by: Marisa C. Sánchez, Ph.D., assistant professor of art history, in collaboration with the artist
Exhibit dates: Friday, Sept. 4-Saturday, Nov. 28, Lycoming College Art Gallery
Artist Talk (open to the public): Wednesday, Oct. 14, 4:30 p.m., Trogner Presentation Room, Krapf Gateway Center, Lycoming College. This talk is co-sponsored by the art department and the Humanities Research Center, with generous funding provided by Barbara Lovenduski Sylk ’73. This talk coincides with Martinez’s artist-in-residency and exhibit which is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Artist-in-residence at the College:
Thursday, April 23-Wednesday, April 29, 2026
Monday, Oct. 12-Sunday, Oct. 18, 2026
Exhibition Overview
“Becoming River” is contemporary artist Guadalupe Martinez’s solo exhibition at the Lycoming College Art Gallery and the artist’s first show in Pennsylvania. Curated by Marisa C. Sánchez, Ph.D., assistant professor of art history, in collaboration with the artist, “Becoming River” is Martinez’s meditation on the West Branch of the Susquehanna River and its tributaries, and her reflection on the river’s profound presence in the landscape and the surrounding region.
Through her research and in thinking about the river’s existence, the artist expressed “The Susquehanna is an ancestral presence, a humble yet powerful witness. It is over 300 million years old. I was amazed to learn that it predates the Atlantic Ocean and the breakup of Pangaea. This was a profound insight about time, and to the expansive dimensions by which we are constantly relating; being contained by without noticing. A cosmic omnipresence so much larger than ourselves and our culture.”
At the gallery, “Becoming River” is an immersive installation that includes five large-scale projected video works, including three from Martinez’s poetic project “Reflections on a Window Glass” (2020) and the debut of two new videos focused on the river and created by the artist specifically for this exhibition. Filmed in Williamsport, Pa., during the first part of her residency, these two videos explore Martinez’s experience of the river. Conceiving this waterway as a “powerful witness,” Martinez’s approach considers the river’s livingness, which recalls for Sánchez the writings of Robert Macfarlane, who claimed that “Rivers are our first singers, our first storytellers…[they are] a kind of storage medium, as well as a narrative force. We tell our stories with and through rivers.”
“Art to me, is the soul’s native language, and remembering it ignites the possibility to live in a truthful, grounded, expansive way.” -- Martinez
In “Becoming River,” Martinez invites viewers to reflect on what this river has held, what it has carried. Visitors to the gallery can contribute to “River Stories,” an interactive section within the exhibit where the artist encourages them to share their stories about their relation to the river. This section of the exhibit provides space for the exchange of ideas and includes images from her “Sensorial Archive: Reserva Costanera Sur,” made between 2012-2015, along the Río de la Plata in Buenos Aires. This work provides further context for her interdisciplinary artistic inquiry that approaches the landscape not merely as a geographic site, but as a living, embodied archive. Martinez has said of this aspect of her Sensorial Archive, “Soil, vegetation, rubble, atmospheric conditions, and the rhythm of the tides carry the deep imprints of political history and ecological transformation. Through walking, collecting, filming, and drawing, my practice attunes itself to these more-than-human forms of remembering, exploring how sensory aesthetics can access historical truths that language and conventional archives cannot hold.” In line with this, Martinez offers visitors a somatic exercise titled “Rock Ritual,” a self-guided exploratory walk that moves beyond the art gallery to the banks of the Susquehanna.
Martinez was invited to be an Artist-in-Residence at Lycoming College by Sánchez, who has researched and written about the artist’s work since 2012, when she first met Martinez in the artist’s studio at the University of British Columbia, Canada, where Martinez was a graduate student in the M.F.A. program at the time.
Martinez’s work has since evolved to become a multidisciplinary artistic approach involving movement, touch, performance, and expressive arts, as well as land-nature connection. She has developed concepts of sensorial aesthetics and expansive pedagogies as radical tools for transforming art-making and collective relating.
About their current collaborative, interdisciplinary project at Lycoming College, Sánchez commented, “As an art historian and curator, I have long been artist-centered in my academic teaching, research, and curatorial practice. When I arrived at the College in fall 2023 and was asked to curate an exhibit for the Lycoming College Art Gallery, I began a conversation with Lupe about the possibility of collaborating on a project alongside an artist-in-residency. In turn, I sought out additional funding and, in summer 2024, submitted a grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Arts’ Grants for Arts Projects (GAP), which was awarded to the College in August 2025 in support of this research project and creative collaboration.” Sánchez further noted, “As a visual artist who also teaches performance art in academic settings, Guadalupe’s interdisciplinary artistic practice and expansive pedagogy proposes that we consider and embrace modalities of learning that attend to the corporeal, experiential, relational, and the visual. I am excited to introduce Lupe’s experimental work to students, faculty and the greater campus and Williamsport communities this fall semester.”
“As we explored during my visit, I started to understand what I was already sensing with the river, not just a physical feature or a natural resource, but an ancient witness. A living presence that precedes and animates human history and its movement across the landscape.” -- Martinez
Throughout the planning stages of this interdisciplinary and exploratory project, several faculty and student collaborations have taken shape and will be fully realized during the fall 2026 semester. While in residence in April 2026, Martinez offered an embodied workshop in collaboration with Rubén Varona, Ph.D., associate professor of Spanish, whose upper-level seminar, SPAN 426: Magical Realism and Latin American Imaginaries, were introduced to Brazilian author Clarice Lispector’s “Água Viva” (1973), an important text of magical realism that anchors Martinez’s “Reflections on a Window Glass,” a multi-channel video installation. This fall, collaborations with Lycoming faculty members and their students include Amanda Gunderson, D.M.A., associate professor of music; Sánchez; Varona; Ph.D., associate professor of Spanish; and Emily Wilson, Ph.D., associate professor of astrophysics; as well as Lydia Huelskamp, director of Outdoor Leadership and Education; and Catri Barba, adjunct theatre faculty member teaching dance. Martinez will also engage students studying studio art with fine art faculty Andreas Rentsch, associate professor of art; and Howard Tran, Logan A. Richmond Endowed Professor of Art.
A unique component of this project has been a collaboration with Andrew Paulhamus, assistant professor of accounting, who embraced the curator’s and artist’s vision and opened his family farm as a research and workshop site for the project. Established by the Paulhamus family in 1838, Paul-Haven Farms is a generational farm situated among the rolling hills outside Williamsport, Pa. Martinez will offer a workshop on the farm where participants will be guided through collaborative experimental writing and performative walks to explore the body as a space of convergence for memories and histories, both personal and collective, in relation to the river and the Quenshukeny Run tributary. This workshop emerges from the artist’s expanded pedagogy, which cultivates a practice where embodies learning transforms conventional approaches to art production and education — a holistic process of liberating the body and the self, to occupy the often-disembodied spaces of academia and art institutions; allowing for a more expansive space to integrate and share knowledge.
Additionally, Martinez’s art exhibit and residency coincide with Sánchez’s ARHI-340: Performance Art History, a new course at the College that introduces students to the history and theory of performance art from a global perspective. In this context, students will have the opportunity to learn about Martinez's innovative art practice focused on embodied learning. They will engage the artist’s performance-based practice, exploring the body, memory, history, and identity. Students in this course will also co-author a podcast focused on “Becoming River.” The podcast will become part of the inaugural Lycoming College Podcast series supported by the College’s Humanities Research Center.
This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts’ Grants for Arts Projects (GAP), which was awarded to Lycoming College in support of Sánchez’s grant proposal. To find out more about how NEA grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.
Additional Events Coinciding with this Project
Below are several events currently scheduled to engage Martinez’s “Becoming River” exhibit. Other programs will be added during the fall semester. For a full list of updated events, please visit the gallery online.
Saturday, Sept. 12, 10-1 p.m.
Lycoming College studio art and art education double major Sydnie Reynolds ’27 will lead a hands-on painting workshop for high school students. This en plein air (in the open air) workshop begins at the Lycoming College Art Gallery in Martinez’s “Becoming River” exhibit and participants will then walk together to the river for the painting workshop. If interested in signing up, please email sanchez@lycoming.edu for further details.
Saturday, Oct. 17, 10 a.m. (end time to be determined)
Martinez in collaboration with students in Sánchez’s ARHI-340: Performance Art History course and Gunderson’s MUS-254: Keys To Humanity, will take part in a performative walk. This event is open to the public and begins at the Lycoming College Art Gallery. For more information, please visit the gallery online.
Saturday, Oct. 17, 5 p.m.-7 p.m.
During her artist-in-residency at the College, Martinez will be a Featured Speaker at the 2026 Pennsylvania Art Educators Association (PAEA) Conference held this year in Williamsport, Pa. In her exhibition, “Becoming River” at the Lycoming College Art Gallery, Martinez will offer a workshop titled “Sensorial Visualities: Embodied Research as Expansive Pedagogy,” which invites educators to explore the artist’s evolving concepts of sensorial aesthetics and expansive pedagogies as radical tools for transforming art-making and collective relating. Through a multidisciplinary approach involving movement, touch, performance and expressive arts, as well as land-nature connection, participants will engage in embodied research to unearth ancestral wisdom and nurture the creative-body within the learning environment. By privileging the body as a primary site of knowledge, this session aims to animate new ways of being that foster healing and expand consciousness in and out of the classroom. This workshop is open to PAEA Members attending the Conference.
https://sites.google.com/paea.org/paeaconferenceprogram/schedule/saturday
Saturday, Nov. 7, 10-1 p.m.
Lycoming College studio art and art education double major Sydnie Reynolds ’27 will lead a second hands-on painting workshop for high school students. This en plein air (in the open air) workshop begins at the Lycoming College Art Gallery in Martinez’s “Becoming River” exhibit and participants will then walk together to the river for the painting workshop. If interested in signing up, please email sanchez@lycoming.edu for further details.
Friday, Nov. 20, 5:45 p.m.
Please join us for this special event at the Lynn Science Center's Detwiler Planetarium at Lycoming College. Researched and created by Aaron Deffenbaugh, ’27, an astronomy and film & video arts double-major in collaboration with the artist, this Planetarium Program will expand upon “Becoming River” to explore planetary time. Further information will be available in November. RSVP will be required.
More About the Artist
Originally from Argentina and based in Canada since 2008, Martinez is an artist, researcher, and educator whose practice unfolds through ongoing, embodied collective processes. Bridging performance art, somatic creation, and expansive pedagogies, her site-specific work seeks to cultivate dedicated spaces for deep connection, healing, and collaborative world-making.
Martinez lives and works on unceded territories of the Coast Salish Peoples in what is also known as Vancouver, British Columbia. She holds a B.F.A. from the National University of Arts in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and in 2014 she received a M.F.A. from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, where she has been a Sessional Lecturer in Performance Art, Actions, and Approaches since 2017. She has established herself as an active influential artist in Vancouver's dynamic arts ecosystem and a mentor to a younger generation of women artists. Her ongoing project “CUERPO collective-body” is a fluid group of emerging artists and mentors sharing knowledge, movement, and touch. Martinez has been awarded grants from Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council. In 2022, Vancouver's Public Art Program commissioned her to create an ambitious, outdoor, video installation. Notably, she has worked with leading Canadian curators Kimberly Phillips, Lorna Brown, Tarah Hogue, and Denise Ryner on solo and group shows. Her work has been shown internationally in Argentina, United States, Italy, Mexico, and Canada at The Vancouver Art Gallery, SFU Art Gallery, Or Gallery, Access Gallery, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Griffin Art Projects, Latitude 53, Grunt Gallery, VIVA! Art Action, LIVE! Biennale, Open Space Victoria, CIA (Centro de Investigaciones Artisticas), Palais de Glace, Museo del Grabado, Centro Cultural San Martin, Centro Cultural Borges, and Infr’Action Venezia among others.
Martinez also holds a certification with honours in Ontological Coaching from Newfield Consulting in Chile, and Natalie Roger's Level 1 Creative Arts Therapy program in Argentina. She has attended multiple specialized trainings, workshops, and retreats around the world ranging from Eckhart Tolle's School of Awakening, Presence through Movement and Somatic Mentorships, to Marina Abramovic Method and Pocha Nostra Performance Art Intensives.
About the Lycoming College Art Gallery
The Lycoming College Art Gallery, located in downtown Williamsport at 25 W. Fourth St., contributes to the city’s arts culture and enables the College to become more involved with the surrounding community. Lycoming art students have the opportunity to interact with visiting artists and learn first-hand the inner workings of an art gallery. The gallery is open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 4-8 p.m. For more information, please visit the gallery online.