Back to Monsú

Alicia Dussán and Gerardo Reichel Dolmatolff -pioneers of archaeology in Colombia- probably first came to Monsú in 1974, alerted by a local inhabitant who had stumbled upon a clue of a possible new site. It was not just a coincidence since two decades earlier they had already carried out other excavations in the department of Bolivar when their temporary home was Cartagena.

Some 1,000 kilometers and 50 years have passed since then. To return to Monsú, the journey has occurred in both space and time. The result of this journey are the pieces that make up this exhibition by artist Rosario López, based on the artist’s own excavation both in the memories and representations of Monsú, as well as in her own landscape and the nostalgia of other journeys.

The physical and cultural stratigraphic cuts and the reading of its textures, the ceramic fragments and the work tools of Caribbean settlers from thousands of years ago, as well as the documentation of the discovery, are the detonator for this exhibition that also gathers other inquiries about the vestiges of a remote past in Guaviare.

¿How does one return to a place to which one has never gone? The first encounter occurs through the recounting of the find, the second in situ on the grass that now covers it, and the third now, in the interpretation of the forms of the original debris that finally loses its shape. Here López deliberately pursues that same blurring.

This materiality is the starting point for the artistic work, for the crafts and knowledge surrounding embroidery, ceramics and the creation of shapeless objects. The way the land in Monsú was occupied and abandoned at various times raised, and still does, questions about “cultural origins, external relations and, above all, about the extraordinary role that the lowlands of the Caribbean Coast of Colombia played in the prehistory of the continent.” (1)

For López, these questions extend beyond the circumscription of a specific territory. Monsú is a stop on the longer journey that incorporates different latitudes to understand both external and internal invisible forces. It is the body in the landscape and the landscape in the body that reveals intimate stratigraphic layers. Both searches, the external and the internal deeply tied to materialities and objects, reveal ways of doing and of life.

(1) Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff. Monsú, an archaeological site, 1985
Back to Monsu, was a solo show exhibited at Espacio Continuo Gallery between February 17th and April 1st, 2024.