“Imagen Regional”: In Search of the Colombian Pacific

The exhibition in Cali brought together works by thirteen artists who examine the conflicts, dramas and hopes of this complex and injured region of Colombia.

Under the curatorship of Yolanda Chois, the exhibition Imagen regional (Regional Image) probes the deep waters where the problems of sovereignty and representation that the Colombian Pacific region faces lie. The exhibition brings together works by thirteen artists who, like islands in an archipelago, create a route to travel through this disputed territory. There are the dystopian vestiges of urban dispossession and land grabbing, but also an active civil resistance against disappearance, racism and patriarchal violence, and a human strike in the face of the acute crisis that makes food more expensive, hinders access to education and buries thousands who try to survive on a daily basis. Thus, the art room becomes a vigil.

This exhibition is also a critical statement against structural racism that excludes Afro-descendant communities not only from the coverage of basic services and social welfare, but also from the structures of training and circulation in the arts. This led the curator, along with some of the artists from the exhibition, to enter into a series of laboratory-dialogues with artists from Buenaventura and Quibdó – a necessary mediation to broaden the discussion on that alleged “regional image” that in any case reinforces the colonial imaginary in Colombia.

Imagen regional
Curatorship: Yolanda Chois
March 4 through June 9, 2021
Centro Cultural del Banco de la República
Cali, Colombia, Calle 7 # 4-69

Photos and text: Nicolás Vizcaíno Sánchez