EXHIBITION COSMOPOLITICAL RAINFOREST

Gathering of knowledge in the Art Museum

www.divulgacion.unal.edu.co
Six artists, and curated by Maria Belen Saez de Ibarra, present the exhibition that opens doors to
the public on October 1, 2014 at 6 pm at the Art Museum of the National University of Colombia.
Commissioned and produced by the National University of Colombia, opens Cosmopolitical
Rainforest, a journey through the relationship between nature and culture in the Amazon macro
basin.
The Art Museum of the National University of Colombia, as a laboratory of creation and
experimentation for production of knowledge through art, working in this intercultural project
throughout this year. It is an aesthetic proposal unprecedented in the country.
The artists work has been accompanied by the curators conceptually, it promotes dialogue and
collective creation, and with human and economic capital, covering the entire production under
the scheme of commissioned works.
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Cosmopolitical Rainforest is an intercultural project, produced since May, at halls of the Museum
of Art at the National University of Colombia, with the participation of 6 artists, under the
commissioned works model, which poses a weaving between the various parts (facilities ,
sculpture, video, sound files, drawing, painting) related to the culture of the Amazon macro basin.
Participating are natives Abel Rodrguez and Fabian Moreno, holders of traditional knowledge of
botany; Miguel Angel Rojas, Miler Lagos, Delcy Morelos and Ursula Biemann; in addition, a group
of shamans accompanies the project, which also offers audio files of the forest and the magical
rites of Amazonian shamanism.
Amazonian culture is radically different. Here, the relationship between nature and man is no
dummy, is an ecosystem where the human thinks and knows "across and with " the living, in a
cosmos which involves the natural world in a complexity of various levels and layers, blending on a
notion of life that transit and links in an indissoluble chain.
As a society that inhabits the planet we must urgently provide our reflection and respect for
learning this ancient form of existence. At stake is not only the survival of a continent, but the
world.
The Amazon macro basin is essentially a water world, where the universal systems of rain and
underground circuits regulate the precious liquid. Western scientists reported that 20 percent of

the water on the planet is only on the surface of the Amazon River and its many tributaries.
The approach of the project is then cosmogony, cause it covers the atavistic culture and natives
knowledge; but also cosmopolitan, from a planetary vision and intercultural path; and also
political. Not only because it shows a lack of awareness and a sense of caring about life and living,
but because it points to the "other, another culture in friction, which essentially separates our
prevailing social and economic structures, the end of the mediocre and opportunists, who might
be rethought and that will inevitably, while life is vulnerable to lack of awareness and see that the
damage is already irreversible.
In the exhibition you can see that some cultures are sick and in friction, looking for their path and
survival: thats why it is so important that in this stress, the concept of life above all interests and
blunders of contemporary society makes its way.
What can we learn from natives knowledge and how to help assess and revive the connection with
the land and the living world? Those are questions that confront us.
The curatorship is made by the Art Museum with Maria Belen Saez de Ibarra, Director of Cultural
Outreach at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. It is supported by the Swiss foundations
ArtEdu and Prohelvetia, and Tropenbos International Colombia.
In the four months of production of the work of artist Miler Lagos, it have been linked the citys
vulnerable communities, through the Mayor of Bogot, the student community of the Universidad
Nacional de Colombia and various public and private educational institutions in the city .
It should be noted that in the context of the exhibition, it will also be developed an education
program with foundation Tropenbos International Colombia through workshops on the Amazon
rainforest and their cultures.
Seminars with natives and scientists, workshops for art students, architects, designers and artists;
and talks with the creators of the assemblies are part of the exhibition activities. Guests to the
workshops are personalities like: Eduardo Kohn, Paulo Tavares, Ursula Biemann and Brigitte
Batiste.
Amazon Rainforest has the support of a large number of local and international agents such as
ArtEdu Foundation, Tropenbos, the Mayor of Bogot and many others.
The commission and production of all pieces of art, interventions and records in the rainforest are
conducted by the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, through the Direccin Nacional de
Divulgacin Cultural UN (National Directorate of Cultural Outreach UN), with administrative and
logistical support from Fundacin Arteria.
The exhibition opens to the public on Wednesday, October 1st, with a concert of the Symphony

Orchestra and Choirs of the Conservatory of Music of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, with
the work Go Payari, composed by Jesus Pinzon, a Colombian ethno- musician. Its a song, in
native language, to the dead that are returning to the universe, with the presence of more than
150 musicians in the courtyard of the Museum of Art.
DESCRIPTION OF THE ART WORKS:
All works allude to the intelligence of the living - Nature and its relation to man - culture and
contemporary capitalism.
Ursula Biemann and Paulo Tavares: artists from Switzerland and Brazil respectively. Video art and
documentary installation project showing some legal debates between natives communities and
oil companies such as the International Court of The Hague. Also, takes us into the rainforest and
the new natives culture that are changing by their contact with the capital. Among the index
document, academic research and artistic aesthetics.
Delcy Morelos: Installing large format, 30 meters long, with land, natural fibers and snuff. The
earth as a basic living element that lies at the bottom of rivers. Ambiguous image between the
strength of what drought and possible vivente the precious liquid. The presence of snuff refers to
the origin of man in the Indian cosmogony, mother, female entity as land.
Miguel Angel Rojas: Installing large format as on a stage without actors exposes the tension
between the beauty of a large group of royal victory, the world's largest aquatic plant that grows
only in the Amazon, amid the decadent abandonment one conteiner mining giant that hidden
within the vast Amazon basin in animal form mythical entity, covered in gold leaf 24 carat.
Miler Lagos: sculptural installation using 40 tons of recycled newsprint, which accounts for the
contemporary industrialization process, where you will see a huge set of roots, which have taken
over the architectural structure and the museum. Another set that is intimately pervades the piece
Rojas and natives teacher don Abel Rodriguez and Fabian Moreno.
Abel Rodriguez: Natives Grandfather of Caqueta. India ink drawings. His drawings carry a
traditional knowledge of botanical knowledge. His knowledge is close to the botanical
encyclopedia with over 400 species depicted on the process more than ten years off the Dutch
Tropenbos Foundation. It presents the ecosystem of the water and the mythical world of the
cosmogony of the Amazon basin.
Fabian Moreno: Natives Botanical Caqueta. Oil Painting. We taught in a large format mural running
a cananguchal Amazon, origin of the world and vital wetland ecosystem of the water world.
Painting involves the myth of the anaconda and the ancestral knowledge of cosmogony.
OTHER ACTIVITIES

Bibliographic Exhibition. 400 books and papers on the subject nature and culture in the tropical
forests of the various international NGOs and universities.
Publication of a catalog that lists all theoretical and visual proposals, and a website that includes
links to the sound files and the content of the project.
Information and press
Patricia Ordez
Journalist, communications consultant
Phone: 316 5000 Ext: 17605
Cel: 314 262 7649
E: I pordoneza@unal.edu.co
divulgacioncultural1@gmail.com
www.divulgacion.unal.edu.co
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