The Temporary Exhibition Grant at Galería Santa Fe facilitates the development of projects focused on promotion, creation, education, and research in plastic and visual arts that aim to promote and enhance the artistic output of the physical spaces of Galería Santa Fe, inviting individuals or groups to design and execute a non-commercial temporary exhibition in these arts.
This initiative seeks to meet the promotion needs for practices related to plastic and visual arts and to foster projects that enhance interaction, encounters, and various forms of creative transformation that the citizens of Bogotá engage in.
Las infancias y La Violencia bipartidista en Colombia (Children and Bipartisan Violence in Colombia, 1946 – 1950)
Carolina Bácares Jara and Camilo Bácares Jara
Western Room
Have we ever delved into an archive? It’s an encounter where we simultaneously connect with what is absent and what is present: Flipping through the yellowed pages of a family album to reclaim a memory, observing how someone has aged, or stumbling upon a moment we cannot recall but that certainly occurred, evidenced by the photograph that confirms it. Our daily lives are permeated with numerous forms of archival.
The exhibition “Las infancias y La Violencia bipartidista en Colombia” (Children and Bipartisan Violence in Colombia 1946 – 1950) showcases the archival work of Carolina Bácares Jara and Camilo Bácares Jara, who explored what it was like to be children in Colombia between 1946 and 1950, during Mariano Ospina Pérez’s presidency amidst the era known as La Violencia (The Violence). Childhood is not merely a stage; it is shaped by narratives, institutions, and actors within specific contexts.
Thus, being a child in Bogotá’s La Candelaria district in 2024 is vastly different from being a child in a peasant family aligned with the Liberal Party in 1949. Many children from the era of La Violencia, who have survived into the present, are now grandparents, mothers, and granddaughters, intertwining their experiences and memories into our family narratives. We are invited to engage with this archive, to be permeated by it, and to help in reviving these memories through our own stories.
Curatorial text
Las infancias y La Violencia bipartidista en Colombia (Children and Bipartisan Violence in Colombia, 1946 – 1950) is a project derived from the assembly of a news archive from El Tiempo, Jornada, El Siglo, and El Espectador newspapers, previously curated and organized into a virtual exhibition, supported by a research grant from the National Library of Colombia. Now, thanks to the Temporary Exhibition Grant from Galería Santa Fe, the archive has been artistically reinterpreted and enriched through a contrast of lights, shadows, testimonies, materials, and sounds, aimed at facilitating a connection with this obscure, seldom-explored past in our country’s history.
The era known as La Violencia fostered multiple childhoods, creating varied social experiences for the children of that period, shaped distinctly by the influence of specific actors, discourses, actions, and institutions. We must remember that during Mariano Ospina Pérez’s four-year term, the conservative-liberal clash and persecution escalated due to a series of decisions and events that defined his administration. For instance, he enacted two states of siege, dissolved Congress, suspended Assemblies and Councils, imposed curfews, censored media and telecommunications, conducted courts-martial against the “nueve abrileños,” promoted the fervent slogan of liberal fraud, outlawed union protests, politicized the police with the so-called “chulavitas,” and his tenure was marked by the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, which triggered the Bogotazo, widespread popular uprisings, and the formation of regional self-defense groups.
We invite you to engage as participants and witnesses to the extensive impact of La Violencia on the children of that era, and to reflect on how profoundly and in what ways it altered the lives of their own families decades ago. Presented are five art and sound installations that bring to light the information collected, enabling visitors to experience firsthand the political tensions of the era, as well as the direct and indirect repercussions that compelled children to endure a childhood shaped by La Violencia: Either by displacement, harassment, threats alongside their families, or even death to deter and intimidate political adversaries.
Carolina Bácares Jara – Camilo Bácares Jara
Acknowledgments
Esmeralda Meneses Ruiz, La peque, Bochi, Paula Gil, Jorge López, Mariana Arango García, and María Clara Arias Sierra.
Credits
General Production: Angélica Rodríguez; Sound Design and Production: Alejandro Vergara Becerra; Video Production: Leticia Prado; Museographic Supports: Edward Domínguez, Nicolás Caro, Execute Design; Photographic Documentation: Triketa Films; Photographic Post-Production: Final Touch Digital; Art Printing: Graph&Co; Visual Identity and Graphic Design: Tangrama.
Aún por nombrar (Yet to Be Named)
Paola Peña Ospina – Curator
Eastern Hall
There are two guiding phenomena behind the exhibition “Aún por nombrar,” which features the works of nine artists and one collective: Unveiling and Transforming. What exactly? The narrative of our colonial history has been shaped and relayed to us in a certain way, a narrative that still resonates today; but to what end? To expose alternative interpretations of the colonial past, sparking reflections and debates that may lead us toward different potential futures.
The goal of this group of Latin American artists is to present their unique methods of reshaping this narrative, which appears singular but is not; it involves decolonizing our mindset. They also remind us that we have already observed significant shifts through two specific actions: The first includes works associated with the act of transformation, characterized by the iconoclastic behavior of destroying, demolishing, or modifying statues, as witnessed extensively in our country during the 2021 National Strike. The second encompasses works that uncover the hidden layers of the colonial narrative, through acts of reinterpreting and reclaiming ancestral legacies. While artifacts are housed in museums, their histories and meanings must be disseminated beyond these confines. By prompting us to reconsider how the colonial past has been portrayed, art, according to “Aún por nombrar,” compels us to engage and actively transform our political and social landscapes.
Curatorial text
Colonial legacies are increasingly being brought to light, and the artworks in this exhibition strive to echo the desires of numerous voices aiming for transformation. This emerges through two phenomena that make use of gestures, actions, and demands to unveil and dismantle the colonial construct. The first relates to the recontextualization and reclamation of ancestral heritages, while the second involves the iconoclastic acts of demolishing, destroying, or altering statues. Together, these phenomena introduce a new dimension of engagement, advocating that addressing the past must involve collective action, not merely intellectual contemplation.
This endeavor focuses on disclosing how various valued cultural objects and artifacts, as well as their subsequent journeys, were secured and structured within a matrix of enduring colonial practices and perspectives. Yet, following years of challenging dominant historical narratives, a remarkable debate now takes prominence in the public discourse, not only to hold the past accountable for concealed injustices but primarily to encourage the development of alternative possible futures.
Credits
Andrea Ferrero @andreaferrerop
Andrés Monzón @andresmonzon
Gala Berger @galaberger
José Ruiz @se_hacen_publicaciones
Joiri Minaya @joiriminaya
Juan Covelli @juan_covelli
Laura Campaz @materiaoscurx
Minga Prácticas Decoloniales @mingapracticasdecoloniales
Sebastián Carrasco @naitsabes.ocsarrac
Curator
Paola Peña Ospina @paolape_022
Museography
Daniel Blanco @danielenblanco
Arturo Salazar @arturosalazarg
Paola Peña Ospina
Design
José Ruiz
School of Mediation
The School of Mediation advocates for the inclusion of diverse communities in Bogotá through a differentiated approach, emphasizing connections with the environment via plastic and visual arts. A central strategy involves creating pedagogical experiments within workshops and mediations, enabling interactions between the arts and communities in their own settings.
Mediation during narrated visits offers an interactive dialogue with audiences across various exhibitions and scholarships under the Red Galería Santa Fe. During these events, visitors are guided through the diverse exhibition and art spaces, encouraged to collaboratively explore alternative interpretative paths.
The School of Mediation at the Red Galería Santa Fe provides narrated tour services from Tuesday to Saturday during standard gallery hours. Additionally, it features sign language interpreted visits on the last Sunday of each month, ensuring the exhibitions can be experienced through a range of sensory inputs.
We also invite you to imagine and connect with the artworks through textures and vibrations!
School of Mediation: Activity
In this activity, we encourage visitors to engage with the installations crafted by the School of Mediation.
This involves a newspaper featuring fictional stories which participants can alter through writing and drawing. The installations will be gathered to create an archive accessible within the exhibition hall.