Talk looks at work of Colombian artist

Doris Salcedo artwork Unland

Grad student Gina Beltran will examine the sculptures and installations of a well-known Colombian artist Thursday in her talk, “Memory and Mourning in the Work of Doris Salcedo”.

Unland by Doris SalcedoHer talk will examine how Salcedo’s artwork – self-termed as the “epicenter of catastrophe” – makes visible, names and gives form and meaning to violent experience and its unspeakable consequences.

The event will take place March 11 at 2:30pm in the Senior Common Room, 305 Founders College, Keele campus. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Through a careful analysis of Unland, a 1997 three-piece sculpture that morphs and re-signifies damaged domestic objects Beltran will argue that Salcedo’s installation performs an active process of mourning that gives physical and symbolic dimension to trauma.

The concept of trauma will be discussed in relation to memory and mourning as personal and collective processes that shed light on the individual’s intimate experience of violence within and beyond the national context of the Colombian conflict.

The talk is organized by the Spanish Section of the Department of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics with the support of Founders College and the Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean.