Image from Carolina Caycedo’s River Serpent Book
Carolina Caycedo unfolds Serpent River Book, part of Be Dammed
Carolina Caycedo’s Creative Capital Project, Be Dammed.
Carolina Caycedo, Rios Vivos, 2014
Be Dammed
Carolina Caycedo is an artist who transcends institutional spaces to work in the social realm, where she participates in movements of territorial resistance, solidarity economies, and housing as a human right.
Artist BioBe Dammed consists of several moving image and object works. Serpent River Book is a 72-page accordion fold artist-book, that combines archival images, maps, poems, lyrics, satellite photos, with the artist’s own research on river bio-cultural diversity. The fluctuating publication takes form in a long and meandering collage that can frame many narratives. As a book it can be opened, pleated and read in many directions, and has a performatic potential to it, functioning as a score, or as a workshop tool. Serpent River Book gathers visual and written materials compiled by the artist while working in Colombian, Brazilian, and Mexican communities affected by the industrialization and privatization of river systems. In the related 2 channel video To Stop Being a Threat and to Become a Promise, natural and industrial imagery is juxtaposed to illustrate the effects of river-damming projects. Challenging the concept of natural resources, and the landscape framing, the artist experiments with psychedelic visuals to cast a spell on infrastructure and progress. These works are part of the ongoing body of work Be Dammed, that investigates the effects of extractivism on natural and social landscapes, exploring the power dynamics associated with the corporatization and decimation of water resources.
From the Journal
Carolina Caycedo speaks about how the positive connotations gifted to the construction of dams or mines as indicators of “progress” by focusing on the indigenous communities affected by these projects.
Carolina Caycedo
Los Angeles, CA
Carolina Caycedo was born in London to Colombian parents. She transcends institutional spaces to work in the social realm, where she participates in movements of territorial resistance, solidarity economies, and housing as a human right. Carolina’s artistic practice has a collective dimension to it in which performances, drawings, photographs and videos are not just an end result, but rather part of the artist’s process of research and acting. Through work that investigates relationships of movement, assimilation and resistance, representation and control, she addresses contexts, groups and communities that are affected by developmental projects, like the constructions of dams, the privatization of water, and its consequences on riverside communities. She has participated in international biennials including Sao Paulo, Berlin, Paris Triennial, New Museum, Havana, Whitney, Venice and Istanbul. In 2012, Caycedo was a DAAD Artist-in-Berlin resident. She has received funding from Creative Capital, California Community Foundation, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Harpo Foundation, Art Matters, Colombian Culture Ministry, Arts Council UK, and Prince Claus Fund.
From the Journal
- Carolina Caycedo Finds the Beauty in Continuity October 27, 2017