85: Anthology of Romantic Violence
2020
one-channel video
5 minutes
85: Anthology of Romantic Violence (2020) is a video project that focuses on creating a portrait of a space. The piece is a 5 minute long video and presents footage that I recorded over the span of 3 different days, at 3 different times of the day. The video depicts what is known as “La Zona Rosa” (The Pink Zone) which is a commercial part of the city, here in Bogotá, near my house. This area is famously known for its lavish restaurants, shops and nightclubs and bars. Most of the night life is on 85 street which is what I titled the work after. It has always been a very crowded space where many people would go on the weekends and with this work I wanted to create a portrait of what it has become. After the pandemic and having all establishments closed for over 7 months the area has seen a devastating transformation and as it is shown in the video many places now hang the “Se Arrienda” (For rent) signs on their windows as the country faces a great economic crisis. This sense of loneliness or emptiness is amplified as very few people can be seen throughout the video and it is a very big contrast to how many people you would find a year ago at the same hours and days of the week in which the video was recorded.
The imagery is accompanied by a narration as I selected to read fragments of 6 different literary works from recognized Latin American authors. With the narration I wanted to focus on how Latin American literature is known as being very romantic and authors like Gabriel García Marques, the most famous Colombian author, are known for the creation of “Magical Realism.” I chose to accompany the video with fragments from this work as Latin America has always been perceived through the lens of imperialism and the Global North, as a poor violent region.
While Colombia has a great history of violence and is facing social, economical and political hardship, I decided to accompany this raw unedited footage of our reality with the romantic narration from the lens of Latin American authors to create an alternate narrative of what the media has depicted of us. In films or movies Latin American countries are often depicted with these orange filters and uncultured people and Colombia is known as a place full of violence and drugs. I wanted to redefine the narrative for what it is and show a place I have always known in an unedited manner and show that this narrative is simply not true. I accompanied this footage within the framework of Latin American authors who have shown the great romantic traditions of our countries while still being aware of the issues we still face. While I want to highlight the troubles we face I think it is important to highlight the beauty of words and the great work of authors in this region of the world.
