For centuries the Americas have been inhabited by people who learned to truly understand the territory and nature—and live in harmony with it. Today we celebrate and honor that ancestral understanding. With the exhibition “CO-RELATION: The Art of Unity”, the Cultural Center of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) presents a series of contemporary artists from Colombia, host of the Annual Meeting of the Boards of Governors of the IDB and IIC 2020. From an array of perspectives, techniques and materials, the artists evoke themes and periods that bridge the realities of the indigenous peoples who inhabit Colombia today.

These groups comprise one of the great riches that Colombia offers the world. Inhabiting about 30 percent of the Colombian territory, their variety and vastness make them unique. Of the 522 indigenous peoples in Latin America today, 103 live in Colombia. Of those, 65 are at risk of extinction. Their languages ​​and cultural knowledge are also at risk.

This exhibition brings together contemporary Colombian artists from diverse territories and landscapes, cities, towns, Amazon riverbank communities and other rural and urban Andean areas. Some represent native peoples while others work with them, coexisting in a curatorial commitment to highlight communication between these worlds as an act of unity to increase intercultural experiences and enrich the world through understanding.

The artists echo different aspects of indigenous cosmovision, and the challenges faced by indigenous communities. Their works examine the ancestral wealth, and the cultural and biological diversity of Colombia, and aim to elevate awareness of the urgent need to care for these communities and to ensure their survival and that of the planet.

Together with the artists, the Cultural Center wanted to create an immersive experience of the senses, one that would allow us to experience life differently through rituals, relationships with elements, plants and the sacred. We wanted something that would allow people to revere in and travel to other spheres of the indigenous worldview.

This cosmovision makes one’s relationship with the land an issue of identity and establishes principles of social organization based on reciprocity and redistribution. To reflect that, this multidisciplinary exhibition includes sound landscapes, visual arts, and installations to recreate a space that transports the public to indigenous lands and related sounds of nature, languages ​​and ceremonies.

The IDB recognizes the incomparable role of indigenous peoples as participants in the region’s development. It aims to create conditions in which they can develop in harmony with their surroundings, using their own priorities to fulfill their cultural, natural and social potential.

“CO-RELATION: The Art of Unity” was co-curated by Manuela Reyes and Trinidad Zaldívar.

Artists: Miler Lagos, Rosa Ximena Tisoy Tandioy (warmity), Miguel Ángel Rojas, Aldibey Jaidiber Tálaga Camayo, Jorge Panchoaga, Monika Bravo, León David Cobo, Luz Lizarazo, and Danilo Rojas.