Variation on witness to the ruins condenses our experience as witnesses to one of the most ambitious urban development projects undertaken in Bogota, at the threshold of the millennium: the demolition of an emblematic, foundational city neighborhood, as well as its unfolding into multiple forms of archives.
Through a special device of five screens and in an intensified use of time, Witness to the Ruins brings together visual and sound memories of the transformation process of the Santa Inés neighborhood, known as “El Cartucho” (the Cartridge), before, during and after its disappearance, and of the appearance of a non-place: the “Third Millennium Park”. This live-archive piece has been possible thanks to the presence of Juana Ramírez, the last inhabitant of “El Cartucho”, who has participated in this process from the beginning.
Before and through the gaze of the last inhabitant of the “El Cartucho” District: Juana Ramirez, who carries out the same action she performed daily during her last few years at the district (preparing arepas and hot chocolate), we say farewell to an important chapter in our city. However, this farewell ceremony constitutes an act of resistance against oblivion, against disappearing without a trace. This woman’s vitality serves as a brutal testimony to the survival force in human beings, when faced with the disaster produced by the paradoxes and arbitrariness of power.
Madrid, España