Arder la casa, on political violence, family and exile

Arder la casa explores political violence in Colombia through my family history and my father’s exile in 2015, after his term as mayor. Using archives, analog photography, video, painting, and sculpture, it traces cycles of separation and escape.

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. In 2015, for the first time, I understood my family was fragmented and separated due to the political conflict of a country where violence remains one of the worst in the world. Arder la casa explores the multiple layers of the experience of political violence in Colombia. 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.