PHOENIX VIEWER PERFORMANCE HOW TO

Spaniards Named Her Magdalena, But Natives Call Her Yuma It should spark an interest and challenge the way we relate to nature, which is currently permeated through a colonial perspective. The idea is to tap into senses to generate empathy, and ultimately provide statistics and data in a way that is not cold, empirical and boring. Art has a lot of power to do this and to stir empathy. Is the aim to provide the viewer with a transformative experience that will change their human-centric perspective on nature?Ĭarolina: Casting a spell has to do with tapping into as many senses as I can. Lydia: Your installations feel like immersive worlds or alternative habitats, and you have described art as like 'casting a spell'. My intention is to get closer in all senses to the land, water, the communities of that territory. The patriarchal fieldwork speaks about an objective perspective over the object of study. It allows me to offer a commitment to those communities. When you start thinking and feeling at the same time that activates a spiritual dimension. It requires being in the field to understand, to feel. Listening to testimonies, going through archives. It's a commitment to the rigour and methodologies of doing fieldwork, collecting information, data, objects, images. Could you describe how this approach manifests in your work?Ĭarolina: 'Spiritual fieldwork' is basically about commitment. Lydia: You have described your process as 'spiritual fieldwork'. It aims to suggest that even if these satellite images are high resolution, they remove particularities about the cultural diversity that exists in that territory – you can't see the species of trees in the forest, or types of fish in the river. The work is a photo collage subverting the militaristic view of the satellite. The latter is a colonial and extractivist way of relating to natural entities. We need to go swim and grow along them – not against them. It applies to our relationship with natural entities – water, wind, the forests. This metaphor is an important one in life generally. He let it drag him a little bit, swimming with the current rather than against it.

PHOENIX VIEWER PERFORMANCE HOW TO

He jumped into the river to show me how to swim with the current. There was a particular incident when I was about eight or nine, and my grandfather could see that I was struggling. The experience of swimming in a river is very different to swimming in a pool.Īs a child, I would struggle to cross the river when the current was strong. We'd cook soup by the river, swim and fish there. As a family, we would spend our weekends doing trips to rivers. I used to swim and I did this competitively until I was 14. Could you take us back to that moment and how it formed your interest in water as an artist?Ĭarolina Caycedo: 'I've always been close to water. Lydia Figes, Art UK: In your video Spaniards Named Her Magdalena, but Natives Call Her Yuma you reflect on your early experiences with water, including one from childhood. To coincide with her show at BALTIC and her participation in the Serpentine group show ' Back to Earth', Art UK speaks to the artist about her broader practice, the problematics of greenwashing in contemporary art, and her relationship with the UK.Ģ022, installation by Carolina Caycedo (b.1978) Her spiritual approach to creating environmentally engaged art illuminates the social power structures and mechanisms of control exerted by multinational corporations, which threaten precious water reserves, ecosystems and human communities.

Weaving together research from her visits to international dam sites – from Germany's Black Forest to the Rio Magdalena region in Colombia – such works conflate scientific research, human stories and the artist's personal reflections. Her latest solo show, ' Carolina Caycedo: Land of Friends' at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead (until 29th January 2023) features seminal works from the artist's oeuvre, highlighting her varied practice and video installation pieces such as Spaniards Named Her Magdalena, But Natives Call Her Yuma (2013). Performance view, Carolina Caycedo in 'Atarraya', Phoenix, 2018

Phoenix viewer performance