Site-specific work at Fragmentos Espacio de Arte y Memoria, Bogotá, Colombia. 2025
Palabras, Palabras, Palabras was conceived as a site-specific piece for Fragmentos Espacio de Arte y Memoria. It comprised of 60 meters of terracotta textile panels enveloping the space, printed with the entire text – arranged alphabetically – of Colombia, País Fragmentado, Sociedad Dividida by Marco Palacios and Frank Safford, published in 2002. A book fundamental to the understanding of Colombian history, it was the first historical account to situate the country’s internal conflict and economic inequity in two of its structural faults: geographical and social fragmentation, and the persistence of societal configurations similar to those in place in colonial times.
This work builds on my 2022 installation Inestabilidad Incalculable, in which this text was turned into a spoken-word sound piece; in Palabras, Palabras, Palabras it became material for the audience to reconfigure and dismantle, word by word, during the exhibition. Visitors were invited to choose one of the thousands of words lining the walls of Fragmentos to take away, the performers then cut them out, so staging a progressive disintegration of the fabrics and the historical narrative imbricated within them. An audience that engages with this piece becomes enmeshed in the memory of Colombia’s history; their acts of excision become over time a rolling edit that unveils a story repeatedly silenced and retold.