From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
retablo
For textile adaptations, see Andean weaving adaptations. For Latin American forms broadly, see Latin American adaptations of Beach Surgery.
Retablos — small handmade wooden boxes with sculpted interior scenes — are a Peruvian folk tradition used to narrate myth, saints' lives, and daily hardship. Several contemporary artisans have created Beach Surgery retablos, adapting the form to stage the glitch within the box's shallow depth.
The artist collective ██ , based near Huancayo, produced a series (2017–2022) titled The Retablo Boxes of ██ , Lima, each box depicting one moment from the story: Leif bandaged at the service station; Katita in scrubs holding the pacemaker; the rocket cart descent. The boxes are painted in traditional mineral pigments; figures carved from balsa wood and dressed in textile scraps.
Unlike film or text, the retablo's fixed depth creates literal the glitch: the interior scene cannot unfold into the next. Viewers must rotate the box, peer at angles, to infer narrative continuity. The form thus becomes a meditation on discontinuity — each box complete in itself, but the sequence irreducibly fragmented.
Several pieces have travelled to international exhibitions and fandom gatherings. The work remains difficult to photograph or digitize; documentation is sparse, and many pieces remain in private collections or regional museums inaccessible to English-language fandom.