Flagrantly there is not a classification of the world that is not arbitrary and conjectural. The reason is simple: we do not know exactly what the universe is. (...) The impossibility of penetrating in the godlike scheme of the universe cannot, however, dissuade us from planning humanly schemes, even though these are provisional. (Borges, 2007, page 142).

We recall that during our childhood we asked a recurrent question: What is there in the universe?... Galaxies, stars, constellations, planets, satellites, among many others; that is how science, encyclopedias, even stamps we found in chocolate bars that filled albums reassured us that was all there was; but, intuitively, we knew there was something else in its constitution, something unsuspected, it might have also been intangible or even invisible, located in the most remote and obscure part of it. That is why, with the passing of time, we have created our very own answer: the universe is overflowing with the past, all that we thought lost, with silence, memories, with all that has been forgotten and the origin of each and every human being that, like a loop, is played throughout existence. As a result of this speculated answer, we configured the artistic project ‘Autobiografía del universo’, presented in the Sala U of the faculty of architecture of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín, in 2019, which is precise to designate as the antecedent for the current exhibition.

Therefore, having this clear and coming back to the first question, we add another: What is there after the universe?... From scientific point of view it would be impossible to obtain an answer, moreover, it could very likely be annulled due to its senselessness, but from where we are standing we can confirm there are: fragments, scattered pieces of that orb that from the distance, the emptiness, the hole, are capable of evoking their immensity, “how it happens with the multiple fragments of a broken pitcher; they are not the same, just right, [it cannot be yearned for]” its original sense, but each of it parts can be approached lovingly, [recognizing from its incomplete being that they belong to a superior] body. (Benjamin, 2010, page 121).

That is exactly what happens with this exhibition, the pieces that compose it are part of a greater body: the project ‘Autobiografía del Universo’, but most of them could not be presented. Now La Balsa Arte welcomes them to present from the discontinuous, the leap or the unforeseen, not a linear and organized narration, or the remarking of a history, but an archeology where each fragment lights up our past, that which comprises a country, a natural disaster, a place, thousands of others that we cannot name, but that are an indelible part of our life and brotherhood.

Thus, the video installation ‘Corriente’ and ‘Firmamento’, and the videos ‘Universo’ and ‘Piedra’ are the translations of a sorrow, of the unavoidable and of that which evidences the frailness of our human nature, through the performative gesture. In a different way, the series ‘Ocaso’ and ‘Niños perdidos’ address photography not like a reliable document of a certain event or familiar moment, but more like an “image that, despite everything, survives” because the view has transformed it and will keep doing so. Finally, the graphic pieces are the result of all we learned throughout our childhood, with our first drawings and paper cutouts: the reality can leave its harshness so that all that overwhelms us, that makes us close our eyes, that hurts and that belongs to another; softens with innocence to ultimately be able to say that that is also ours.