Corredor / Corridor or Passageway

Projects
Corredor - Corridor or Passageway
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Year

2013

country of production

Colombia

credits

Alexandra Gelis

kind of work

Interactive Video Installation

Corredor / Corridor or Passageway

CORREDOR: the big picture.
43 Salón Inter-Nacional de Colombia.
Four screens interactive video installation and eight-channel sound immersive space

CORREDOR: The Big Picture
26th Images Festival 2013. Closing Night Gala.
LIVE IMAGES: MUSIC + VIDEO. Music: drummer Hamid Drake and baritone saxophonist David Mott. Toronto, Canada.
Commissioned by Images Festival Curated by Kathryn MacKay.

Gelis’ Corredor, which can be translated as corridor or passageway, explores the layers of significance embedded in Latin American landscapes, and the economic, social and political forces hidden beneath their surfaces. Her evocative images trace both natural and artificial boundaries used to define and control populations, deftly documenting the banal and the beautiful, the threatening and the benign.

Through the use of words and images, politics and poetry, Corredor surveys conflicted and conquered places while reflecting on the political implications of the post-colonial landscape. In particular, it investigates various aspects surrounding the Panama Canal, and the control exercised by the United States on the landscape and the psyche of the Panamanian population. Touching on the role of the notorious former School of the Americas in Panama, a US military academy also known as the School for Dictators, as well as describing the strategic use of Paja Canalera, a thorny, prickly and invasive imported plant that was used by the US army to separate the Panama Canal Zone from the rest of the Panamanian population, Gelis’ images encourage the viewer to reflect on borders real, imagined, contested, resented or forgotten and ignored.

Kate MacKay

Corredor / Corridor or Passageway

landscapes can be seen as the intertwining of cultural, and bio-political constructs in which our sense of place and memories reside

This project explores the significance of landscapes, and the economic, social and political forces hidden beneath the surfaces, specifically tracing the landscape’s natural and artificial barriers used to control the population.

Through the use of metaphor, images, poetry and narrative the project translates ideas and propels critical relations between the space of the installation and the space of life and its political implications.

It deals with issues related to post-colonial effects in Latin America. In particular, it investigates various aspects surrounding the Panama Canal, and the control exercised by the United States on the landscape and the psyche of the Panamanian population.

The project gives special attention to the role of the former School of the Americas in Panama, the planting of the Paja Canalera, a thorny, prickly plant that was used by the USA army to separate the Panama Canal Zone from the rest of the Panamanian population and Panama situation nowadays.

Video instalación de seis canales, aborda problemáticas estrechamente relacionadas con los efectos post coloniales en América Latina como el Canal de Panamá y el control ejercido por los Estados Unidos sobre el paisaje mental y físico de aquella nación.

Es una obra docuemntal sobre la Escuela de las Americas, La paja Canalera (planta que invade el país en la actualidd) y Panamá hoy.