2023, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá

(Im)possibilities:

of things, senses and relations

“In order to make a new world we must definitely start with an old one. To find a new world, maybe you have to have lost one. Maybe you have to be lost. The dance of renewal, the dance that made world, was always danced here at the edge of things, on the brink, on the foggy coast. Úrsula K. Le Guin (Free translation)

This is the result of an exercise of gathering that allowed us to pause in small and imperceptible movements necessary to sustain ourselves. To slow down our walk in order to watch our feet, to feel what has been navigated from below and watch the path that took us to inhabit every step, and, perhaps, to also imagine that we inhabit other (im)possibilities of futures. Trees touching us in the middle of a large city that rooted us rhizomatically, submerge  us in the water capable of deviating  the paths of mountains while proposing other routes amidst rocks and mud, to find ourselves with images coming from science fiction taking us back to other landscapes outside of the linear and brilliant highways reminding us of what we have to do in the middle of broken worlds. To listen to sounds that situate us in the (im)possibilities of interrupted dialogues charged with infinite accents and also new worlds. To create images and gestures that unite with a machine that is never able to grab the promised treasure while its grips remain paused in silence. To finish carrying bags and continue looking for other (im)possibilities of searches and nesting in places where life must germinate again from emerging composts surrounding us. Fermentation creates bubbling possibilities.

We paused and listened to the languages of others, humans, non-humans, substances and objects in order to approach the futures  surrounding us. We went back to our hidden and attentive bodily memories, to find other ways to speak the world. We gave ourselves to the everyday process of becoming in correspondence with others, while weaving ourselves with water, trees, machines, bags, sounds and images. We paid attention, we shook the pensamiento in the middle of material and affective practices that run through the (im)possibility of existence. We tried to contribute with some threads that can be tied and weaved in order to make other worlds and new constellations where bags are the necessary elements and not swords.

Course Director: Juan Ricardo Aparicio

Assistant: Carlos Ovalle

Exhibition and Publication Design: Taller Agosto

Project Supervisor and Exhibition Curator: Catalina Cortés Severino

With contributions from: Valentina Ruiz, Salma Proaño, Tatiana Roa, Vanessa D ́Silva, Juan Camilo Gutierrez, Valentina Lizarazo, Gerturis Uribe