Arder la casa, on political violence, family and exile
Featuring: Margarita V Beltran
Curated by: Margarita V Beltran
Presented by:
Old Fulton and Furman St
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Location open 24 hours
Arder la casa explores the contingencies of political violence in Colombia through my family history and my father’s exile. In 2015, after finishing his term as mayor of a small town bordering Venezuela, my papa crossed the Colombian border — fleeing the political persecution he had been subjected to for decades. I remember him disappearing on different occasions when I was still a child. But fairy tales that my parents told me justified his absence. Now, for the first time, I could understand my family was fragmented and separated in the harshness of a country where political violence reaches the worst statistics in the world. Witchcraft, religion, socialism, and mafia culture are at play within the cultural environment of the story. My father’s exile marks an inflection point from which the project develops. Traveling between past, present, and future, I unveil our history to reveal traces of violence, separation, and cyclical escapes. The project utilizes archives such as pictures or newspaper clippings, paintings, analog photography, video, and sculpture.
Artist Bios
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Margarita V Beltran
Margarita V Beltran (she/her) is a Latina artist and photographer based in Germany and Colombia. She teaches decolonial photography at Bauhaus University. For a number of years, Beltran has worked on gender, race, and political violence in the context of Colombia and Germany. One of her most recent projects, Arder la casa, has been on display at the Michael Horbach Stiftung in the Cologne, Rizoma space in Palermo, Italy, as well as Photoville. Beltran is interested in the intersections between art, the politics of care, and online fabulations. She is a researcher on hybrid education in photography. She is also a member of the Native Agency.
Organizations
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Photoville
Photoville is a New York-based non-profit organization that works to promote a wider understanding and increased access to the art of photography and visual storytelling by producing a free annual festival, amplifying impactful narratives, and connecting artists to a wide global audience by activating accessible public spaces via large scale exhibitions.
Proudly devoted to cultivating strategic partnerships and creative collaborations with community spirit, UPI approaches its mission of cultivating a wide, diverse audience for powerful photographic narratives by working closely with visual artists, city agencies, nonprofit organizations and educators worldwide to create new exhibition and public art opportunities that showcase thought-provoking, challenging, and exceptional photography. For more information about Photoville visit, www.photoville.com
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