Accidentes geo-gráficos
Colombia / France
2022
Accidentes geo-gráficos [geographic features] is based on a story told from generation to generation within the Afro-Colombian community: in the days of slavery, the Maroons (people who resisted slavery) used their braids to secretly communicate ways to freedom, designing topographical landmarks needed for their escape. Inspired by the stories of Afro-Colombian braiding women, Laura Quiñonez displays these traditional hairstyles against the landscapes historically settled by these communities that still fight for their rights today. Originally designating landscape features formed by millennial telluric movements, these Accidentes geo-gráficos embody wider human and social collisions. Transcended through these hairstyles, these features both represent survival from a tragic colonial past and symbolise a new horizon for these communities.
This project was supported by the ENSP of Arles and the Alliance française of Bogota. It has also received the PACA region’s creation aid-2017.
Portfolio
About the artist
Born in 1985 in Colombia, the artist photographer Laura Quiñonez graduated at the ENSP in Arles. Her art practice combines photography, drawing and book design. Her research focuses on issues of geography, history, identities and bodies as archive material. She is currently working on the project Ananses, a sequel to Accidentes geo-gráficos, supported by the CNAP.