Unland 2 Favorite 

Doris Salcedo talked extensively with victims of the violence in Colombia. For the project titled Unland she spoke specifically with children who had witnessed the murder of their parents. This piece was a poetic response and representation of their testimony. Salcedo combined halves of tables together to make a whole. In the seam where the tables joined Salcedo meticulously sewed the tables together using white silk thread, dark hair and bone. The ratio of hair to silk increased the closer to the seam the weaving was. Salcedo stated that, “we spend our life around tables and their familiarity helps to draw you in, yet these objects have been forcibly united…and appear to be like the mutated remains of an accident”. This is clearly a very aesthetic response although I would argue that it is activist art because it is a poignant display of how we might begin to respond to testimony, reconcile violence, or bear witness to trauma.