My work

My colonial wound is not remembering what I have lost – Auckland 2020

It is an ongoing anthropological phenomenon that we are moving toward a homogenous world with less space for particularities. The intensification of colonialism continues despite the historic processes of independence.

Under this scenario, a large number of Colombians have built collective identities between two polarities; the prioritization of Western knowledge, that is, a hegemony that neglects the diverse, and other forms of knowledge construction, such as indigenous. The result is us; we are the mestizos, inheritors of a hybrid identity. 

This project speaks of those hybrid experiences that today show more relevance in our migrant status in a country that is also going through other forms of hybridization. Bringing our traditional knowledge into the contemporary world is at once a rescue of our sense of identity and a creation of a place to which we can belong.

Project goals and outcome:

This project aims to develop new collaborative insights and researching methods from the interaction of two distinct artistic expressions (writing and arts) in order to create and execute projects around the concept of land and territory and everything that these notions involve; Sense of belonging, identity & ancestral roots, de-coloniality and Latin American diaspora are some of the themes we will explore.

The expected outcome is a series of objects that later on can put together one or various installations accompanied by texts that in different shapes will contribute to the aura of the artwork. From fictional texts, research, poetry or chronicles the writing will enrich the symbiosis of the objects and vice versa.

Territorio Ancestral – Colombia, 2019

With the help of Fundación Apü’naja we conceived “Ancestral Land” (2019); a creative lab where the participants set out to rethink the plastic and narrative possibilities of weaving. Where territory is a hammock, home is a desert and memory are dreams, the boundaries between one concept and another blurred and opened the way to a very powerful force that does not want to die.

Now, in 2020, we are aiming to continue working with this community in various projects, one of them from an environmental perspective, for sustainable development in charge of Bea Mo.

In the following link, you can find the GOFUNDME campaign where you can help us to make it possible: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sustainable-development-in-la-guajira

A cuatro metros de mi Glándula Pituitaria (Four meters from my pituitary) – Auckland, 2018

The pituitary gland is stimulated by the acknowledgment of environmental disruption, the kind of disruption that comes from displacement and raises the urgency to build a sense of place. “A cuatro Metros de mi Glandula Pituitaria”, is a shelter that presents a fragmented, metaphoric and nomadic landscape. As totems that occupy space, the installation offers a symbiosis of shifting landscapes between Colombia and Aotearoa, inspired by the nostalgia that not only comes from a geographical up-rooting but from the yearning for an ancestral connection.

The construction of this handmade landscape proposes an atmosphere where unreadable elements speak directly to the senses through colors, textures, and shapes that are the result of the need to occupy a portion of ground in foreign space. A propagation of ideal and emotive realities that transform into a physical one.