Altar para pájaros

Birds are celestial letter carriers, who travel the earth exchanging seeds between remote places, secret messages to be deciphered by the grandparents who use the sky as the newspaper of the Gods. Within the cosmogonic logics of many communities there are beliefs about the meaning of certain birds. All of them come from the multiple and constant experiences shared by man and nature. The dove, for example, announced the promised land of the Christians, the eagle is the symbol of the power of contemporary tyrannies, the owl is a transformed witch and the hen announces death. The migratory processes of birds have guaranteed plant diversity on the planet and their rhythms mark the quality of harvests. In the area now occupied by Bogota, the ducks that travel from north to south stopped over and were an important part of the Muisca’s diet. Today in Latin America, eating duck is a custom only of the Europeanized elites.

Any migratory movement, from one to thousands of individuals of any species, is not only a natural phenomenon, but also an ecological one. To guarantee the balance between all the beings of nature, the species communicate and move (at different rhythms) according to the needs and kindnesses of nature in general. If this movement is interrupted, harmony is also interrupted and chaos is foreshadowed. It is the same with people, thanks to the journeys of ancient humans, not only the genetic material that allows us to survive was formed, but also the information necessary to develop the sciences and the arts was exchanged.

Altar for Birds is an experiment that brings together several strategies to understand the patriarchal processes of colonization, domination, interruption, exploitation … as anti-ecological phenomena that respond to logics alien to the vital rhythms of nature, and therefore, are opposed to the harmonious existence of human beings. The work of Sandra Monterroso that is included in this exhibition belongs to different periods and moments of her work. For this reason, it can be understood as a historical review of her artistic career, which revolves around the obsessions that have transversally fed her practice. Beatriz López