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A Liquid Body: activating memory in the context of coloniality along the San Juan River, Central America.

Through artistic practice including field work, activation of image and historical archives, workshops, walks and conversations, this research project investigates the relationship between coloniality and ecology in the border region between Costa Rica and Nicaragua aiming to unearth its buried history by engaging with its ecosystems and communities.

The focus of this research is the San Juan River that forms the border between the two Central American countries. Starting near the Pacific and ending in the Caribbean ocean, the river is part of a densely forested and intensely biodiverse ecosystem.

A hot, humid environment hosts diverse communities of mixed indigenous, Afro-Caribbean and European peoples, reflecting the region鈥檚 colonial history. From mid-19th century this ecologically fragile site has been targeted by companies and governments including British intervention, aiming to produce profit by using it as a strategic waterway connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific.

Since then 鈥渢he ghost of the canal was let loose, without rest鈥� (Belli, 2003) making deep marks on the landscape, haunting its inhabitants. Although the riverbanks appear calm, they embody histories of conflict and resistance, with a population persistently threatened by aspirations of globalised economic growth.

My artistic practice will be the main method of research. In my work I investigate landscape and geological activity, to reveal possible relationships between the earth鈥檚 movements, instability, politics and the fragility of body and mind. I employ a multilayered approach including collaboration, workshops, reactivation of archival writing and images, fieldwork, film and installation art.

Building on these strategies, through dialogue, co-production and dissemination in the San Juan region and in Europe I aim to articulate the complexity of the following:

• The exploitation of the region through attempts to build an interoceanic canal since 1850s.
• How coloniality and political conflict have affected the area鈥檚 ecology and its communities.
• The role of this flowing riverine landscape as a factor in the co-construction of memory.

鈥淢emory is the principle of justice that makes it possible to destroy the link between power and violence.鈥� (Ruiz Guti茅rrez, 2013) Central America has remained mostly invisible even within decolonial artistic research. Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui defines this condition 鈥渁 politics of oblivion鈥�. Through a dialogic process I aim to unearth why this is the case.

Working with the tensions created in the transfer of knowledge from one geography to another, from a communal to an exhibition space, from daily life to archive, from the oral to the academic context, this project aims to create bridges: my artistic practice can be used as a structure that allows for connections to be made between the knowledge produced in the community, by the landscape itself and knowledge stemming from an academic/artistic context at 牛牛资源.

Exclusion, as well as material and intellectual extractivism, are at the centre of this enquiry. Working on these subjects within the university, the very structure which has historically been one of the pillars in the creation of such exclusion and exploitation is significant. It provides a set of problems to be reckoned with, in the community and from my perspective as an immigrant in London, where the heart of the colonial project still beats strongly.

Supervisors

• Dr Ros Gray
• Dr Julia Sauma

Researcher biography

Adriana Arroyo (b.1981, San Jos茅, Costa Rica) is an artist and researcher.

Her film work has been screened at international festivals including Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival, Oberhausen Short Film Festival and Media City in Ontario. Solo exhibitions include Polytropos: Turning Many Ways, Galerie KM, Berlin, How Much Land Does A Man Need?, Despacio, San Jose, Costa Rica, Unstable Strata, Teor/茅Tica, San Jose, Costa Rica. Her work has been shown as part of group exhibitions at Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, Vienna, Staatliche Kunstalle Baden-Baden, Kunstverein in Hamburg, NICC Antwerp, MADC, San Jose, Costa Rica, Bergman Centre, F氓r枚 island, amongst others.

She was a participant at de Ateliers, Amsterdam between 2011-13. In 2015 she received the Emerging Artist Award from TEOR茅/Tica, San Jos茅, Costa Rica. Arroyo was awarded the Generation Delta Doctoral Studentship (2024-2027) and is a Generation Delta Champion, a role in which she advocates for increased access to doctoral studies for racialised women.

Student website