Carolina Caycedo, BE DAMMED
With Carolina Caycedo and Tamara Suarez Porras In Indigenous cosmogonies of the Americas, all bodies of waters are connected. Rivers are the veins of the planet, and their waters fuse communities and ecosystems. More often than not, however, energy infrastructure is superimposed upon ecosystems and social landscapes with brute force rather than consensual processes that have regard for existing communities. A growing body of Colombia-born, Los Angeles-based artist Carolina Caycedo’s interconnected work, BE DAMMED , investigates the effects that large dams have on natural and social landscapes in several American bioregions. The project incorporates performance, publications, installation, moving image, and more in an effort to intersect social bodies with bodies of water, explore public space in rural contexts, and conjure water as a common good. The artist will share video excerpts, performance documentation, and more to illuminate the many relationships at play across the landscape of this varied project. Following the presentation, Caycedo will be joined in conversation with Tamara Suarez Porras. Carolina Caycedo’s work investigates the 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. Tamara Suarez Porras is an artist, writer, and educator. She explores the fluid relationships of time, memory, and history through a photo-conceptual, research-centric practice.