Make the Invisibles Visible
Master's Thesis Work_2018
Make the invisibles visibles is the result of a seven months of investigation about the violent situation that is happening right now in Colombia after the FARC peace treaty, but seen from an artistic perspective using the immersive medium of VR.
The Artwork is created through the investigation and interviews about the systematic killing of social leaders in different parts of the Colombian territory. Also is the interpretation of the use of the collective memory as a method to remember violent acts, that we as a society do want to forget but in the end is necessary to establish a dialogue and a debate about how we should face traumatic episodes as a society and do not send them into the oblivion.
The project was developed as an exhibition, which is composed by four major aspects. The first one is an interview/ documentary in which is shown the process of a social leader (Activist) in Colombia, the second part deals with the representation of memories through an artwork, in this case with the medium of knitting onto pieces of fabric, the third piece is an VR experience that tries to put the user into a fantastic world that deals with the concepts of memory, oblivion and ways of remembering, finally after these three stages the users are welcome to debate and dialogue with me as, how they perceive violence and traumas inside our society?.
Virgelina Chará is a social leader working for the rights and dignification of the victms during the colombian conflict, she is trying to give opportunities to the victms of different types of violence in the colombian society, to speak laud with out fear and also create awerness through the narrative of life stories onto fabrics as a collective method of healing.
Pieces of fabric on which are represented several types of fears and violence. The first one here, is named the House of Enchantments and was used as part of the testimony and as insiprational work, that talks about the necesity of confronting our memories concerning to traumas not only as a person but also as a collective.
The House of Enchantments - Knitted Fabric
Patchwork and Embodiment for The Memory
Escaping From Violence
Ghosts from Memories
The Come and Go From The Victms
Destroying Nature
Violence against Women
Truth for The Victms
Testing the VR experience with a group of people from different cultural backgrounds, and also part of the debeate that was held afterwards.
VR Experiments
Inside the VR experince, what was possible to observe it was a group of people being draged by the sands of the dessert on an infinity day/ night cycle. When the users were able to approach close to the human figures the name and the picture of the victim where displayed, one of the goals here, was to discover all the people hidden in this virtual world, the biggest figure was the representation of the woman who inspired me to do this work and also she is digging out the people buried to share their stories.
Close Up to one of the Characters Inside the VR World
Timeshift Inside The VR Experience
