May, 2018 Antwerpen, Belgium.
Late Colombian historians came to dub the period of 1810–1816 as the Patria Boba (Foolish Fatherland). In 1810—when the Spanish Empire was under Napoleon’s control—the colony of Nueva Granada (a territory comprising Colombia, Venezuela, and parts of Ecuador and Peru) declared its independence from the Spanish Empire. Between 1810–1816, the Nueva Granada governed itself without being controlled by Spain. This six year period is characterized by internal disputes, civil wars, anti-colonial reforms, and identitarian constructions. However, judged by mid 20th Century historians, this emergent country could only be understood as a foolish one; hence the reason why the ‘first fatherland’ mutated into a Foolish Fatherland. With Napoleon’s defeat and the restoration of the Spanish Empire, the colonies that had declared their independence would later be pacified by the Empire (1815 –1816).
The project Patria Boba takes the historical category of a foolish fatherland as its point of departure. While Patria Boba flirts with colonial relations, it does not attempt to fully enamour them (in Spanish, colonial conquest and falling in love follow the same word: ‘conquista’). The project brings this historical chapter to a contemporary circulation.
The poster for Patria Boba is a portable bronze plate that shares its materiality with monumental commemorative plates. The object is displayed on the floor, along with a “kit” of graphite bars and paper. Visitors are encouraged to lay on their knees, make their own poster through a frottage technique, by rubbing an object against the paper lay on the plate with graphite or any other pigment.
AIRantwerpen
http://airantwerpen.be/
