Forgetting is Forbidden, Colombia

During Black History Month, the Centro Cultural Colombo Americano in Cali, Colombia presented the projects Tejer y destejer: cuerpos con historia (Weaving and Unweaving: Bodies With a History), by Diego Luis Mañunga Balanta, and Prohibido olvidar (Forgetting is forbidden), by Laura Campaz Minota. Both artists base their work primarily on photographic media. Mañunga Balanta records the traditional weaving process with the “cincho” (the vein of the banana leaf), which he uses together with hemp in order to assemble a kind of soft chairs. Campaz Minota, for her part, intervenes archive photos with texts, color fields and lines. Against the violent racialization that seeks to fix black bodies outside of historical time, the work of these two artists insists on the fundamental bodily relationship with the territory and the diasporic memory for our affections and political struggles as descendants of African peoples in Colombia.

The exhibition took place between March 8 and April 24, 2021 at the Centro Cultural Colombo Americano de Cali, in Colombia.

The virtual tour, however, can be visited here: https://www.colomboamericano.edu.co/event/exposicion-black-history-month/2021-02-25/

Text and photos: Nicolás Vizcaíno Sánchez