In 1958 Edmundo O’Gorman (1906-1995) published The Invention of America, a work  which made available to specialists and interested parties the results of his eighteen-year research project the main thesis of which was that “America [is] the result of an invention of Western thought and no longer a merely physical discovery” made by Christopher Columbus one day in October 1492.

Tierra Incógnita. 60 años de La Invención de América [Unknown Land. 60 years of The Invention of America], recalls the vital text of the historian-philosopher through a series of multidisciplinary and intergenerational works of art that reflect on the importance cross-Atlantic maritime expeditions had on Western thought.

The authors included in this exhibition, in whose hands America is invented, start from the geographical and population data of Nova totivs Americae descriptio, by Federick de Wit (1660). The purpose is to invite the reader-visitor of the exhibition to reflect on all those dreams, impossibilities and horrors that sustain America, even today, as an invention of modern thought.