Lisa Blackmore, “When walls become rivers: Carolina Caycedo’s Serpent River Book,” Afterall 49 (2019)
In 2019, following a student-led acquisition through the postgraduate module I teach ” Collecting Art from Latin America,” the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA) purchased the Serpent River Book (2017). In 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic sent the world into lockdown, I curated the first solo exhibition of Caycedo’s work in the UK. When Walls become Rivers, was on show at the Art Exchange, University of Essex.
Before this, I shot and edited a video interview with Carolina during the 2018 exhibition Conjuro de ríos at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá.
The article commissioned by Afterall gathers thoughts about the anti-extractivist vision of rivers that is woven through Serpent River Book.