The Cenote Ring – a collaborative performance by Paola Estrella

With Cenote Ring, multimedia artist Paola Estrella presents an immersive live performance inspired by the myths surrounding an asteroid hitting her native Mexico millions of years ago.

Working across a multitude of analogue and digital media, Estrella takes viewers on a sensorial journey to the underwater portals that link prehistoric memories with speculative utopias. A series of large-scale paintings set the scene with impressions of the otherworldly Yucatan landscapes formed along an ancient impact crater to present a dialogue between natural history and new technologies necessary to continue the cycle of creation, destruction and renewal.

The collaborative performance piece unfolds in three acts and fuses elements of spoken word, sounds and movement, starting with a sonic exploration by María Mónica Gutiérrez who is better known as Montañera.

Gaming technologist Costas Kazantzis and choreographer Pierre Babbage not only contribute their technical expertise but also blend in elements of cyber-physical ecosystems and queer identities. Gabrielle Venguer picked up the language of Paola Estrella’s paintings and translated them into costume designs, while the ambient soundscapes by Bon Music Vision incorporate recordings from outer space.

Cenote Ring at Stone Nest is a one-off opportunity to experience ancestral and futuristic imaginations coming together in a historical building that holds the memories of Welsh worshippers and Limelight clubbers.

The evening concludes with an artist talk moderated by Pia Arreola, former Curator of Digital Art at the V&A, and precedes Paola Estrella’s solo exhibition of paintings at HS Projects in June.

The Cenote Ring is a two-part project by multimedia artist Paola Estrella, unfolding across distinct spaces and mediums to explore the cenotes—natural sinkholes formed by the impact of an asteroid over 66 million years ago. Scattered across the Yucatán Peninsula, these interconnected sites make up the geological formation known as the Cenote Ring.

Bridging collaboration, ritual, and storytelling, the project comprises a collaborative performance at Stone Nest, London and a solo painting exhibition at 5 Howick Place, London. Though presented separately, both are conceptually intertwined—inviting audiences to move between myth and material, the ephemeral and the pictorial.

This project has been made possible thanks to support from HS Projects, Arts Council National Lottery Project Grants, and Artists Make Space Programme at Orleans House Gallery.