Sin cielo – (2016) – ingles

Sin cielo suggests a relationship with the consequences of rampant illegal or legal mining. Although the viewers are neither inside the screening room, nor outside as in Nóctulo, but in front of the work, the scale of the work, the multiple monitors and the enveloping and stressful sound bring the experience of fragmentation and disintegration to a limit point where the work itself seems to be in danger of unraveling.

In Sin cielo and Subterra, by contrast with the presence of the sublime in the contemplation of the mountainous landscape of Supervivencias, the “normalization” and the unfortunate familiarity that the eroded and abused mountains in Colombia have come to have are confronted. The colors and stains of liquids that are presumed to be toxic -attractive and repugnant at the same time-, mixing with the water streams that flow into a larger river, the Cauca, allow us to intuit the sinister contamination, although it is never confirmed. The relationship with the possible causes of the discharge of liquids cannot be established either. One is tempted to accusingly point the finger at those who in some images appear to be dumping waste; however, the panoramic views of their physical surroundings and the ruins of a mountaintop hamlet lead one to wonder whether they are the perpetrators or the victims of these procedures.

María Margarita Malagón.