The Pilgrim Promise: Art, Faith and Diplomacy, 18 October to 12 November 2025 at the Pontifical Gregorian University

In the context of the celebrations marking 190 years of diplomatic relations between Colombia and the Holy See, art has become a catalyst for building bridges towards intercultural dialogue.

This exhibition focuses on themes such as borders and their sovereignty, migratory processes, popular devotion, and the memories of ancestral peoples, in a country whose history is marked by traces of colonialism, extractivism and drug trafficking.

The presence of ‘La Promessa Pellegrina’ (The Pilgrim’s Promise) in Rome strengthens a diplomatic tradition that dates back to the Concordat of 1973, a legal instrument that establishes the groundwork for relations between the Colombian State and the Holy See. This framework of mutual respect and cooperation has allowed cultural expressions to serve as bridges of understanding between peoples over the years.

The exhibition will be open to the public from 18 October to 12 November 2025, at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Piazza della Pilotta 4, Rome). The exhibition takes visitors on a journey through 17 large-format works by the artist Juliana Ríos Martínez - in acrylic and/or oil on canvas - painted between 2018 and 2024. A series of 10 canvases is entitled "The Procession" and portrays the celebration, from the bearers of the image of the Virgin to the band members, from devotees in white clothes to the floral tributes. Another series of 7 canvases, entitled "The Hours", marks the different moments of the procession on May 14, the day on which the miracle attributed to the Virgin of Remedies is commemorated.