Sunday 7 February 2021

Doris Salcedo (b. 1958, Columbia)


A site specific public art project recognizing those 
who died in Colombia's Civil War.
Bogota, 2016

“Doris wants to do something for peace, but we still don’t know what it is,” students reportedly whispered. Soon after, a mass email was sent to the entire campus: “Doris Salcedo invites us to draw the names of victims of the decades-long conflict on seven kilometers of cloth and then put them together with needle and thread.” In response, thousands of volunteers from around the city gathered early on the morning of October 6. Among them was Mariana Sanz de Santamaria, a law student: “Once you arrived, you saw many tables filled with volunteers. There were some people cutting up the letters and others who were getting the cloth ready to be printed with the names of victims of the conflict, which had been gathered from the government’s Registry of Victims.” The pieces of cloth would later be sewn together across Bolívar Square.






 








 




The work, called Sumando Ausencias (Adding Absences) is a statement of mourning, but also a call for peace, Sáez said. Salcedo has said the result of the quilt will be a “flag-shroud” that evokes both those sentiments.

“The act of sewing together each piece of cloth in an act of reparation, of knitting our own peace and is especially important at this time of uncertainty,” she said.

More to read and see.

The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/12/colombia-war-art-project-bogota-doris-salcedo

Smithsonian Magazine: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/artist-blanketed-bogotas-bolivar-square-names-victims-colombias-civil-war-180960798/



 

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