Doris Salcedo (1958 - )
Doris Salcedo is a Colombian-born visual artist and sculptor, who uses everyday household items to create art influenced by her life in Colombia. Members of her own family disappeared during the conflict, so she has been personally affected by it. Her work deals with themes of individual and collective mourning, pain, trauma and loss.
Fragmentos (Fragments), which opened in December 2019, is perhaps Salcedo’s most famous work. It is an entire floor made of the melted remains of the 37 tonnes of weapons handed in by FARC guerillas at the end of the conflict. The peace agreement of 2016 included the creation of three artworks to memorialise the conflict. Salcedo chose three locations for each of these pieces: Havana, where the peace agreement was signed; New York, to recognise the role of the UN; and Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. Discussing the exhibition’s impact, she said:
“Fragments is the floor on which to build a new Colombia and on which to stamp on the weapons… if I could, I would melt all the weapons in the world”.
Another well known installation, Chairs, consists of 1,550 old chairs shoved between two buildings in Istanbul. It aims to address themes of war-time memory and forgetting. She said:
“[this installation reminds her of ] mass graves… anonymous victims… chaos and absence… What I’m trying to get out of these pieces is that element that is common in all of us. And in a situation of war, we all experience it in much the same way, either victim or perpetrator. So I’m not narrating a particular story. I’m just addressing experiences.”
ACTIVITY
Watch Fragmentos and think about why the process of making the artwork was so important.