After Earthquakes, Venezuela’s Artists Turn to Each Other

Artist Gloria Blancato was in her bedroom on the evening of June 24 when violent tremors jolted her awake. The force of the shaking shattered her windowpanes, scattering glass across her bed as the walls crumbled around her.

Clinging to the doorknob as the ground shook, she managed to find shoes, put them on, and leap out of the window of her two-story house in Catia La Mar, La Guaira. Her feet remain swollen and her legs bruised from running through debris. She and her family have been sleeping outdoors for the past week.

“I send this with my eyes filled with tears,” Blancato expressed in a Spanish text message to friends, which she shared with Hyperallergic. “I love you, don’t forget me.”

Blancato is one of the many Venezuelans affected by the 7.5- and 7.2-magnitude “doublet” earthquakes that hit the nation last week, devastating the northern coast and echoing across densely populated cities.

Hyperallergic interviewed several artists and cultural workers in La Guaira and Caracas, the capital, to capture the impact. Many quotes have been translated from Spanish, with links to artists’ social media for updates and aid initiatives.

Over the weekend, the official death toll climbed past 1,700, though this is likely an undercount with at least 50,000 people still missing. Many more are displaced and without homes. With the urgency of finding survivors and addressing a humanitarian crisis, ordinary citizens have become rescuers, family WhatsApp groups have turned into fundraising hubs, and artistic communities have formed search teams and aid networks.

The day following the earthquakes, efforts were made by friends and relatives of painter Onai Quiñonez to rescue him from the rubble of his home. However, sources informed Hyperallergic that Quiñonez did not survive.

“It was a beautiful effort, it came from the heart,” said artist Francisco Schutte, who helped source jackhammers and tools to break through debris.

Heartbreaking stories emerge from La Guaira, Venezuela’s main port known for its beaches and the public artworks of Carlos Cruz-Diez. La Guaira also carries the scars of the 1999 Vargas tragedy, a catastrophe of landslides and rains that killed thousands. For many, the recent earthquakes have revived this trauma.

“I was 11 years old at the time and lost everything, but no family members,” said textile artist Siul Rasse. “I’ve lost three relatives in the earthquakes: a niece and two cousins. It feels like reliving a trauma.”

Rasse was working on her embroidery in La Guaira when an urgent alert appeared on her phone. Confused, she went to her sister’s room, and shortly after, the first earthquake hit.

“The shaking was extremely aggressive,” she shared in an audio message to Hyperallergic. “I ran to the door and stayed there, waiting for it to pass.”

Rasse mentioned that her home in La Guaira is still standing, and she has received food, water, and supplies from friends. Another artist, photographer Azalia Licón, whose brother died in the earthquakes, has also received community support.

Rasse and her sister are so anxious they take turns sleeping, with a bag ready in case they need to flee again.

“I have moments when I’m calm, I have moments when I’m crying,” Rasse said. “Any little sound makes us anxious.”

The earthquakes, the most powerful in Venezuela in over a century, hit a country unprepared for such a disaster. Years of economic sanctions, hyperinflation, and government mismanagement have weakened infrastructure and emergency response. Following the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the installation of Delcy Rodríguez as acting leader, President Donald Trump has strategically used foreign aid, motivated by Venezuela’s oil reserves.

The situation worsens with widespread power and internet outages hampering communication. Armando Velutini Suñer, a sculptor in Caracas, has shifted to installing satellite antennas along the coast to help people contact loved ones.

“We’re doing this so that people can be in touch with their loved ones and have some peace,” Velutini Suñer said. “I’ve been very moved by the civic action and how artists have organized to help each other and move forward.”

“Us Venezuelans, when we support each other, anything is possible,” he added.

Improvised aid efforts are prevalent within Venezuela’s creative communities. At the Universidad Nacional Experimental de las Artes in Caracas, supply drop-off sites have been set up, though many students remain missing.

Polyriddim, Poliritmo, a cultural collective in Caracas, had been organizing events on philosopher Mark Fisher paired with DJ sets. Their WhatsApp group, initially for event promotion, quickly became a support network and supply coordination hub after a building collapse in Los Palos Grandes.

“I think we had never experienced an emergency of this magnitude, where the diaspora of more than 9 million Venezuelans and the millions of Venezuelans living there had to collaborate so urgently,” said Ana Alenso, a Venezuelan artist in Berlin working with the group from abroad.

“The frustration of not being there to help directly doesn’t go away, but I want to focus on the fact that there are many ways to support,” she said. “The big challenge now is sustaining these initiatives, because this will take time and there is still much to be done.”

In a poignant photograph by Ricardo Terán, shared by artist Michael Wong, the father of Onai Quiñonez holds up a recovered painting by his son. Another image shows a broken pottery wheel tray belonging to Quiñonez’s wife, Laura Silva, who survived the earthquake and led rescue efforts.

Wong told Hyperallergic that “it is essential not to stop creating.”

“Something stuck with me that I heard at an exhibition opening: ‘Artists live to live’ — they never die. And Onai [Quiñonez] is proof of that. I never met him in person, but I knew his work, and after getting involved in the rescue effort, I feel him as a close friend and a great loss for art, not just for Venezuela, but for the world,” he reflected.

“I personally don’t like dwelling on the subject of death,” Wong continued, “but I’d like to be remembered the way I remember Onai today.”