Juan Manuel Echavarría (1947 - )

Juan Manuel Echavarría is an artist known for his photographic and video-related works. Echavarría was born in Bogotá and is well known for his project, The War We Have Not Seen, in which he invited ex-combatants to participate in two-year long art workshops that led to an exhibition of their paintings at Bogotá’s Museum of Modern Art. 

The ex-combatants fought in different groups during the conflict. They painted about their personal experiences of violence, drug trafficking, internal displacement and land grabs. 420 paintings by 120 artists were created, with 90 pieces selected for the final exhibition.

Echavarría did not teach any of the combatants how to paint, instead he supplied materials and instructed them to work within 50x30cm wooden boards. The project aimed to create a safe space for participants to talk and listen to one another, and was successful in establishing trust enabling difficult stories to be told. 

In an interview with his friend and journalist, Ana Tiscornia, he said:

“Our interest was to get to know what lay behind each one of their stories and to try and understand what made them get involved in the war. Painting was the means which allowed them to depict the war horrors. For me these paintings were a way to gain more knowledge on the conflict: They revealed many untold stories of the war, and the unimaginable horrors that so many Colombians have never acknowledged.”

ACTIVITY

Do you think combatants from opposite sides of a conflict might have very similar or different stories to tell?