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Poéticas del agua. Dialogues from the spiritual, ecology, and art

Water, as a universal symbol of life, transformation, and interdependence between human and non-human beings, faces urgent challenges in the context of the current climate crisis. Bodies of water, essential for life and the point of origin for diverse ancestral cosmovisions, sustain works and research projects by contemporary artists that reflect environmental, social, and spiritual concerns.

At a critical moment for planetary life, this seminar seeks to generate deep reflections on the interrelation between water, the spiritual and cosmogonic dimensions, bodies of water as subjects of rights, and contemporary art; reviving the deep and respectful connection with this vital element and underscoring its fundamental role not only in ecology but in human survival. It also seeks to articulate the propositions of MAMM’s current exhibitions in a space of encounter and conversation about problems that transcend the environmental to extend toward aesthetic, political, and mystical aspects from which contemporary art finds its voice.

Program

4:30 to 5:00 pm. Registration. Welcome with soundscapes

5:00 to 6:00 pm. Orikis: Bodies of Fresh Water, Bodies of Salt Water.

Lecture-ritual. Guest: Lyann Cuartas.

(Oriki means story in Yoruba) begins from the recognition of the resilience, knowledge, and spiritualities around the care of water held by Black and Afro-Colombian women and trans people who live on the riverbanks. Starting from the philosophy of the African Muntu, in which all beings and corporalities are related to one another, Orikis explores the non-predetermined constructions of the relationship between the body and bodies of water within Black communities of the Cauca Valley, recognizing that while there is a collective memory, each corporality modifies it according to their life experiences, their own imaginaries, dreams, and mythologies, proposing hybrid and expanded identities with the territory. With the triggering question: what are the hybridizations between ancestral knowledge, spiritualities, and intersectional gender perspectives that foster the care of water sources in Black communities of the Cauca Valley? this historical documentation begins from non-Western knowledge, questioning the coloniality of academia and hierarchical ways of constructing narratives.

6:15 to 7:45 pm. Writings of the River: Art and Ecology

Lecture-workshop. Guests: Natalia Quiceno, Ana Maria Vallejo, Alvaro Wills, Ursula Jaramillo, and Flora Rodriguez.

Escrituras del Rio is an interdisciplinary research-creation project that proposes an exchange of visions, techniques, and modes of scenic writing. In this conversation, we immerse ourselves in the questions of its researchers about riverside life and the river itself as a source of creation, fostering reflections from the relationship between art and ecology to navigate expressive paths of the word and forms of expanded writing of memory and the traces of the river in bodies, of bodies in the river; drawing from experiences on the Atrato River and the Aburra River.