Etcétera, Bogotá, 2012 - 2018

This photograph documents a performance by Iván Argote, carried out during the filming of his work La Estrategia. The Colombian-born artist took as his starting point the history of his relatives and their youth spent within a leftist militant community in Bogotá, which he then reactivated with a group of young compatriots in order to extend his reflection into the present. In this film, he covers with mirrors a monument dedicated to Francisco de Orellana, the 16th-century Spanish navigator credited with the “discovery” of the Amazon River. By doing so, he reappropriates the monument and questions the national narrative it embodies—one that glorifies colonialism while disregarding the Indigenous histories that preceded and outlived it. By covering the statue in mirrors, the artist erases the figure of the conquistador and shifts the focus onto the site itself; the monument becomes more inclusive, reflecting and representing the diversity of the population.