Adua

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Signos en Rotación (2022). Karen Paulina Biswell

Place is an integral site of inquiry to Biswell and Siagama Siagama’s collaboration; the Brugmansia Insignis (iguaka) plant, native to Central and South America, is a significant point of departure for their combined practice, and a recurring motif throughout the works in the exhibition. In Embera-Chami culture, the flower plays a sacred role in rituals. When ingested, its hallucinogenic effects are believed to allow the consumer to pass back and forth from the underworld; new understandings of reality, operating through a process of knowing and forgetting, are triggered which reveal a more harmonious mode of existence, attuned to the ecosphere. Using the iguaka plant as an emblem, the artists point to the fractious relationship between the land and ancient traditions and the socio-political realities of Colombia. Invoking the natural landscape, Biswell and Siagama Siagama offer a narrative of transformation and locate a hopefulness in the principles of reciprocity.