Group Exhibitions

Territorios Posibles

Territorios Posibles is an attempt to uncover the Colombian Caribbean region as a dynamic space where multiple struggles and negotiations take place in the construction of identity, contrary to the perception of the Caribbean being singular and homogeneous.

Immortalized in a vallenato, in a picturesque character of a soap opera or in a book that narrates the adventures of a remote village, the region presents a double existence: one that takes place in its streets, nooks and crannies; and another, fantastical, that dwells in our imagination. Sometimes, the limits between one and the other are blurred, as it happens when talking about the “costeño” way of being, who became synonymous with cheerful characters, friendly, partying, talkative, recursive and clocking characters. Prejudices also persist about them as lazy, macho, noisy, corrupt and foul-mouthed. In response, the region appropriated all the good and bad that they were and continue to be, and thus configured its own unique way of being. This new model spread throughout the territory as a rule to be followed, to be measured and judged against. Over time, this typology proved to be insufficient to describe and agglomerate this variety or “sancocho” of people, a phrase coined by Juan Gossain Abdallah, and became an annoying and limiting imposition for many.

In order to make visible the multiplicity of narratives and the efforts of diverse personalities to illustrate the realities of this territory, the exhibition brings together a selection of artists, creators and researchers from the city of Barranquilla, who invite to review and question the ways of interaction with  the city, history, gender and its imaginaries. The exhibition includes video-performance, installations, photography and painting, as well as two projects that escape pictorial practices and opt for the archival and literary.

With his video-performance Desplazamiento en verde (2015), Dylan Altamiranda comments on the transformation of Barranquilla’s public space by symbolically representing the environmental changes resulting from the infrastructural projects aimed by the modernity model. Meanwhile, in Acciones para no mojarse en la playa (2017), Cinthya Escorcia questions the collective behaviors repeated when going to the beach, through actions that go against these behaviors and propose new rituals that border on the absurd and outrageous

In La canasta familiar (2019), Fernando García pays homage to popular aesthetics by commissioning one hundred artists, usually dedicated to painting store and restaurant facades, to depict baskets filled with food and groceries. While García revaluate these traditions, Carlos Vergara confronts us with the international aspirations of Barranquilla by mapping its buildings with names of other cities around the world, evoking the desires of a cosmopolitan past in his work Geografía Imaginaria (2015).

Within a patriarchal society of appearances and pretensions, Jessica Mitrani questions the roles and social expectations of women in a short film entitled Rita va al supermercado (2000). This audiovisual project accompanies Rita on an excursion to a supermarket, where she is confronted with the various ways in which power is exercised over women. Another commentary on gender and sexuality issues is provided by Rubén Barrios, who with his works Los desviados vienen en bandada (2019) and Patea con las dos (2019-2020) makes visible and questions macho practices in the region by alluding to popular phrases and images.

The exhibition includes the display of a fragment of the archive of teacher and researcher Danny González, who has led several projects related to the queer community, transgender practices and homosocial spaces in the Barranquilla Carnival. Finally, this project invites the public to continue this conversation in the Literary Corner, a space dedicated to broadening the spectrum by which we understand the Caribbean way of being and highlighting the work of writers who have contributed to build, maintain and deconstruct imaginaries about the region.

By exposing and recognizing acts of rebellion against the monolithic and excluding Caribbean identity, this project offers other positions and perspectives that allow us to recognize the Colombian Caribbean as a set of real, lived, thought and possible territories.

Literary Corner: Caribes los Caribes

This space is an attempt of a Caribbean library that brings together a small selection of texts by various authors of the region that at first glance seem to have little in common, beyond the fact that their creators were born on the Atlantic coast of the country. However, in a second approach, other links can be found: the cities of the region as scenery, the narration of alternate realities, the critical comments to the local idiosyncrasy and the resistance of some of the characters to it.

Like any selection, this one is not totalizing or complete, nor does it pretend to be. It is presented as an exercise in approaching the Caribbean through its extensive and rich literary production, exploring classic and emerging authors whose stories immortalize or subvert the stereotypes of this mysterious Caribbean being.

Public Program – Sabores Literarios y Cocina Imaginada del Caribe
Activity by the El Mafufo Collective
September 17, 2022

Curator: Nathalie Libos

Within the framework of the exhibition Territorios Posibles, on September 17, 2022, the activity Sabores Literarios y Cocina Imaginada del Caribe was carried out by El Mafufo collective. This collective has been dedicated to research the Mompox cuisine and the Caribbean region, so the workshop was proposed with the aim of activating the Literary Corner of the exhibition from the kitchen of Plural. The activity began by reviewing fragments of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, by the well-known Caribbean writer Gabriel García Márquez, in which relevant dishes appear in the story, in order to highlight how they evoke sensations and emotions that enrich the narrative. This allowed a space for discussion to be generated in which we reviewed how those attending the event imagined these dishes, taking into account that there is no recipe behind them and despite being based on traditional dishes of the region, they can be freely interpreted in the kitchen.

Based on this, the El Mafufo collective directed the preparation of each of the dishes. From One Hundred Years of Solitude were taken the candy animals prepared and sold by Úrsula Iguarán, made with chocolates and colorful candies with different essences and flavorings. Later, the love eggplants that Fermina Daza ate in Love in the Time of Cholera were prepared, based on a Boronía recipe consisting of a puree of ripe plantain and smoked eggplants, mixed with a tomato and onion stew and served with grated cheese and a bit of suero costeño.

The activity made it possible to review the traditional gastronomy of the region from the books of García Márquez, understanding how it has become another ingredient in literature, enriching it with its flavours.

October 1, 2020

Closing of Territorios Posibles

On October 1st we had the closing of the exhibition with the curator Oriana Lozano. During the activity we shared butifarra, bollo limpio and queso costeño, and then toured the exhibition with the curator and broaden the spectrum from where we understand the Caribbean.

*Courtesy Photographic Registration: ARTBO, Bogotá Chamber of Commerce.