Bellas Durmients
This series of documentary photographs titled “Bellas Durmientes” (Sleeping Beauties) was shot in 2013 in a hastily abandoned house in Córdoba, Colombia, an architectural space seized by untamed plant life as if by a guest who gradually, stealthily takes over.
The landscape enters into this period of work in dynamic contrast to the urban, connecting to places, often in ruins, that have been abandoned due to forced displacement, instead of to the characters who have been abruptly uprooted. Despite reflecting a downward spiral—Colombia’s political and economic troubles—these spaces also testify to the power of renewal and transformation in both man and nature.
In the work, the architectural form is silenced by nature. There is a constant struggle between the dematerialization of the space and the materialization of the organic. These are the ruins of a future that has been dramatically cut short. There is nostalgia, mourning and a reflection on absence, but a concept emerges in the work that goes beyond the record of tragedy: there is transformation, mutation and the cycle of life.
It would seem that, despite chaos, everything is renewed, recycled, reborn in another way, stronger and more rooted. These are the footprints of man that remain in time, no matter the tragedy; here is the nearly healing, transformative power of life, of the passage of time, and of nature.
The photographs have been washed out or whitened while also elevating the greens. This is to emphasize the idea of purification, renewal, the cycles of life.
