Nosotros el sur, 2021-2022
Video-installation

In 2020, with the arrival of the pandemic caused by the emergence of COVID-19, the Country where I grew up and where I currently reside Colombia, not only had to face the health crisis, but also the hunger epidemic. Ciudad Bolívar Bogotá and other places in Colombia were suddenly awash with houses with red rags on their doors, hunger was symbolized with red rags, like when someone puts up the Colombian flag on national commemorations.

There was no other option but to shout out your hunger through red on the doors of your house, you couldn't go out to earn your daily livelihood. Some received that timid help promised by the local government, others did not. Others watched as their neighbors heeded their hungry cry, sharing some of what they had. In hunger some built a community. In hunger, others had to resort to violent and desperate acts to survive.

Why is it important to talk about hunger?

Because it is necessary, because it is time to, because it is still considered taboo. Although hunger is associated to poverty and failure, negative notions for society, our intention is not at any time to make critical reflections on the system itself, which have already been done from other disciplines of knowledge, such as anthropology, sociology, economics, among others.

Our premise is only that we be able to tell our stories, not so that they don't happen again, but so that our cry at least be known. We want you to know the way in which not only hunger, but also scarcity, are being appropriated, expressed, represented in Colombia; likewise, how hunger is perceived, in some way, as part of the culture in this territory. Hunger is also a feeling that we all know. The difference is that for some this feeling is temporary, while for others it is a daily occurrence.

Nosotros el Sur: Hambre, Epidemia Perenne is a project that seeks to demystify and question narratives about hunger and scarcity; and how people who have suffered from them in times of pandemic in Bogotá Colombia have created mechanisms to adapt to that particular situation.

In Colombia there was no new normal, there is only looking to fight hunger with whatever we have at our disposal. Will nothing or everything be as before?

«I don't think that's the issue; I think the issue is our daily struggle trying to put up with this problem».