Beatriz González

During the early 2000s González noticed that photojournalists were increasingly publishing images of soldiers or civilians transporting dead bodies. Those images moved her, because in the nineteenth century cargueros were men who took famous explorers, such as Alexander von Humboldt, through the country in order to show them its riches. Now the carriers play a very different role. They reveal the drama that inhabitants of Colombia had to face every day. Beatriz González began collecting clippings of these cargueros: images of naked bodies or bodies being dragged along in hammocks or plastic bags. Those bodies served as the basis for a series of silhouette drawings and paintings revolving around the theme of ‘carriers’, of which Cargueros de Bucaramanga (2006) is one of the key works.

The work is also related to the impressive intervention Auras Anónimas (anonymous auras) (2009-2018) at the columbarium of Bogotá's central cemetery. For this historically charged site, González created screen-printed plaques with different silhouettes of the carriers, which now cover the emptied graves of almost 9,000 unidentified Colombians. In doing so, she created a stirring installation to honour the anonymous victims of Colombia's decades-long violence and conflict.