Where to go on holidays? Newspapers suggest Colombia. Your friends have doubts, security, they say, but the place is thriving. Gold, oil, coffee, bananas, tourism, banking, modernity! So you book a flight. It seems like a dreamland. Still, there is something - or someone - missing. Traces of lost lives: an empty house, an abandoned field, a vacant village square. You hear of a tent city. You pass houses with cardboard roofs. You ask about the people begging on the roadsides. They call them “desechables” – disposables. “Todo cuerpo pesa”. The letters were painted on the side of a bridge. Every body weighs. Each leaves a trace. You cannot dispose of a person without leaving a trace…

Disposable People - Homeless - Displaced People.
(Those who are forced to flee from their homes traveling around the countryside and cities without means of livelihood)  These Persons who are begging for help at the streets are called by the Colombian society Disposable people…
The performance invites viewers to collaborate donating DISPOSABLE Plastic shopping bags which are the construction raw material for the still in process installation.

Foot prints, the soles of peasants’ shoes, life-trajectories, and the displacement of people and objects. These are some of the ideas evoked by this installation and performance.
To assist me as I create the objects for this on-going project, I invite viewers to donate disposable plastic shopping bags, the raw materials from which I work.

Tamara Chatterjee (Photographer)
Jesus Mora (Mixed Media)

Latin America is a wondrous travel destination. However, amidst political exploitation, expansion, growth and development, it is increasingly obvious that the general tourist has a disconnection with the reality of diversity, which is contained within the warmth of Latin culture.

This collaborative video installation explores the illusion, daydreams, and fantasy of all-inclusivevacation packages purchased by “Snow Birds” who migrate from the cold, North American winter, to Latin America for some “fun in the sun”. The visual perspective for this project is achieved through the use of a screen behind a windowsill in a Canadian home.  The screen plays daydream sequences from resort-vacations in Latin America merged with images that reveal the social realities of the people who live there. Our project uses satire and plays with double meaning to reveal the hidden truths behind cheap pre-packaged fantasy vacation brochures.  The travel industry uses strategic advertising to entice “Snow Birds” seeking to escape from the everyday realities of life in North America.  

Moving Earth is a collaborative work that explores notions of immigration and subsequent displacement. Olga and Maria come from different continents and cultural backgrounds. They don't even share in the same artistic language. Olga is a dancer and Maria is a visual artist and yet they discovered a mutual language of exile. Through this collaboration emerges a multi-media story of collective immigrant experience.

Closing Day Performance on April 17 2010 @ 6pm.

The Colombian army has been increasingly and successfully using drones in their counterinsurgency operations in the Colombian jungle.   Are we now facing the possible use of unmanned spy drones, for "routine" monitoring reconnaissance, as well as attack missions against people (protesters, dissidents, politically engaged artists and ordinary citizens who propose new forms of social interactivity) for the significant expansion of covert state surveillance in urban areas?
Thanks to John Crason.

Using radio broadcast recordings and video images, collaborators, Marco D’Andrea and Julieta Maria, comment on the notion of the idyllic landscape, exploring these mechanisms to alter perception through manipulation of visuals and sound.