I had the pleasure of looking through your works in the Perrotin viewing salon with the On Monuments series. You’ve been engaging and negotiating with the idea of the monument for years, but the world had a recent reckoning with monuments over the summer with the Black Lives Matter movements as those in the Americas and Europe vandalized and destroyed monuments to colonial settlers. How did you react to this movement? How did you feel it connected with your work?
Well, the idea of monuments and their meaning is something I have been focused on for the past fifteen years. So, when I saw the current movement going this way, I was very glad. I feel we need to be more critical not only towards the monuments that exist but also towards the idea of the monument itself. Lectures on history and governments' narratives need to include critical teaching. We cannot continue simply adulating our supposed heroes, we need to have a critical lens on our own past if we want to conciliate our present and create a more inclusive future.
Clearly, ‘Monuments’ is a theme that has permeated throughout your works for years. What is a monument to you? Does the power of a monument change for you within its context and environment? What monuments would you like to see in the world?
Historically, monuments have been created to write a certain history into our urbanscapes—they celebrate power, a particular vision; they are propaganda. I feel we should have conversations, create negotiations, modifications to the monuments that exist, and create others that contribute to a different narrative, different perspective. For example, Christopher Columbus… I don’t feel we need to take down Columbus’s sculptures, I feel the sculpture should be changed, moved, or that other sculptures should be added—texts, objects, different kinds of interventions, so we can include the perspective of people who feel he represents the abuse, slavery, and domination of American colonization.
I also had the great pleasure of reading through your book, Let’s Write a History of Hopes, and it mentioned that you grew up in one of the communes formed in Bogotá during the Colombian revolution, and I read somewhere else that your father was a part of the revolution. How did experiencing revolution during your formative years, especially a leftist revolution, influence your practice?
I grew up in a very politically engaged family, true believers of change, and yes, revolution. I learned as a kid that there were many unfair things in the world—against the most fragile and humble people, but also against indigenous communities, Black communities, women, LGBTQ communities. My family talked to me about colonization and about different religions with a critical eye (we are atheist). This was since I was four or five years old. It was truly the way I was raised. For example, my family’s passion is to talk about macro and microeconomics—my mother is an economist, my father an elected politician—we talk, argue, and also have fun talking about all this. So, of course, I see the world with that filter. My years, experiences, travels, and the people I have met have given nuances to that. I have enriched or changed some visions, maybe elaborated on others in a more precise way.