Sylvia Juliana Riveros

Remember. Recognize. Recover., 2022
Poetry, Spanish/English translation. Digital Photographs, 3 x 5 in. (16 original).

Quiero plantar un bosque

Quiero plantar un bosque. *Más bien, quiero re-plantar un bosque. Quiero hacerlo en la tierra de mis padres, la misma tierra que es nuestra, la misma que es de mis abuelos.

Abuela guacharaca, abuelo yopo, abuela madrevieja, abuelo corozo.

Abuelos todos

Quiero plantar un bosque. Más bien, quiero re-plantar un bosque Uno que estuvo antes Y lo recuerdo Uno que estará pronto y lo imagino

I want to plant a forest

I want to plant a forest. More precisely, I want to re-plant a forest. I want to do it on my parents' land, the same land that is ours, the same land that belongs to my grandparents.

Grandmother guacharaca, grandfather yopo, grandmother madrevieja, grandfather corozo.

Grandparents all

I want to plant a forest. More precisely, I want to re-plant a forest One that was there before And I remember it One that will be soon And I imagine it

Remember. Recognize. Recover. project is memory and a call to action. This transformative art media project is inspired by two concepts that are also actions: to remember via Robin Kimmer and to recognize via Amitav Ghosh. I start from my memories to imagine loving and inclusive ways of living. I propose to recover a forest and give back to the territory where I was born what years of environmental destruction have taken away from it.

My project of remembering and recognition constitutes a meta-story about the llanera culture. I explore the unique experience of being "llanera" from a personal and family reflection. Llanera/o in this project are the people who, like me, my parents, and my grandparents, were born and raised in the eastern plains of Colombia. Through narrative writing and photographs, I remember and recognize the particular way in which the llanera/o lives according to the cycles of the earth, the seasonal rhythms of the rice, the relationship with their companion species (cows, horses, and dogs), the human-animal language that sings, the loneliness and distance from other human beings, and the sense of community.

Natural ecosystems are changing rapidly and are at risk of disappearing due to the effects of climate change. I propose strategies to move from concern to action. Through this project, I invite us to imagine fairer, greener, and more inclusive futures together. Shall we plant a forest?

Sylvia Juliana Riveros is a documentary photographer, sociologist, and educator born and raised between Bogotá and the eastern plains of Colombia. Her work explores social and environmental justice issues, migration, and memory.

Sylvia seeks community-based ways to move from concern to action, exploring an affirmative approach to more-than-human and human rights. She loves building bridges with/across disciplines, traditional knowledge, and communities through Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology and Transformative Art Media.

Her project Introito, recorridos por la memoria, developed with the LGBTQ+ community, won the Crónica Fotográfica sobre la Vida Cotidiana de Bogotá award. *Eran los días8, her most recent ongoing project, is the MinCultura (Col) creation grant winner. In this project, she seeks to explore the recognition of the territory and the practices of being llanera/o through biographical photography and creative writing.

Sylvia is currently pursuing a master's degree in XE: Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement at New York University.