Angélica  Cuevas

Riografías del Baudó. ¿Cómo se cura un territorio herido?

Curatorial team: Angélica Cuevas and Diana Rodríguez.

Client: Médicos Sin Fronteras (Doctors Without Borders) LATAM

Artist: Fernanda Pineda

Language:  Spanish 




Riografías del Baudó, a photographic project carried out in collaboration with the photographer Fernanda Pineda, documenting the situation of the Afro and Embera communities of Alto Baudó, was open to the public at Artbo and the García Márquez Cultural Centre in Bogotá in September and October 2024.

In July 2024, Médicos Sin Fronteras (Doctors Without Borders) LATAM commissioned me to create a photographic exhibition that would communicate the reality faced by Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities confined by the armed conflict in the Chocó region of Colombia.

For this project, I curated the images of photographer Fernanda Pineda and, together with museographer Diana Rodríguez, we collaborated on the conceptualization and design of the exhibition. I reviewed an archive of over 500 materials and developed the curatorial guidelines for the show. The exhibition opened in Bogotá in September during Artbo, Colombia's most important art fair, and was later presented at the García Márquez Cultural Center in downtown Bogotá.

The exhibition immersed visitors in the reality of the communities in Alto Baudó, where forced confinement, the presence of armed actors, and state abandonment had created humanitarian gaps and deep vulnerability for the Afro-descendant and Indigenous populations living in these territories. Through a poetic visual language, which included immersive elements that captured the audience's attention, the exhibition documented the landscapes of confinement and the region’s resilience practices. Riografías del Baudó sought to raise awareness among the Colombian and Latin American public about the violence that prevented these communities from living in peace and highlight the traditional healing practices in Alto Baudó. With Riografías del Baudó, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) brought the complex reality of life in remote and violent areas closer to Colombian and Latin American visitors, where MSF provided essential health care programs.