Doing The Rounds
Video
25 min.
2012-2013.
The documentary Doing the rounds explores the relationship between the hitman and his motorcycle from both a historical and psychological perspective. Through interviews with former hitmen from the late 1980s and early 1990s, it reconstructs certain aspects of the context and examines the construction of a psychological and social identity perceived as a legacy of the narcotrafficking era, one that remains latent to this day.
For a portion of Medellín’s youth, the hitman and his motorcycle became a model and point of reference, as well as a way of acting and conceiving life. The hitman establishes symbolic and emotional bonds with the motorcycle, which ultimately become vital to the success of his enterprise but also, through it, a means of personal development and social ascent.
Flight Patterns
Photographic Series
2014.
A large portion of Medellín’s youth either longs for or owns a motorcycle. There are not only practical reasons, but also cultural and symbolic ones, for this to occur. The speed and versatility of the motorcycle provide young people with freedom, power, and, why not, the possibility of escaping from the harsh reality to which they belong. It becomes a way to break free from the suffocating daily life that seems to offer no economic or social way out.
The photographs in the series Flight patterns depict young people on motorcycles bursting into alleys, street corners, or pathways in working-class neighborhoods. Their appearance feels sudden and ghostly. The images render them weightless, absent. We cannot see their identity; we only perceive their presence. Their lack of definition contrasts with the sharpness of the surroundings.
These peculiarities reiterate a lifestyle rooted in the era of the hitmen. Even today, disillusionment, detachment and excess are common feelings. For them, life comprises the hallucinatory and addictive experience of speed, vertigo, and exaltation.
Callejón. Impresión inkjet 108 x 163 cm. 2014.
El hueco. Impresión inkjet. 163 x 108 cm. 2014.
Atardecer. Impresión inkjet. 163 x 108 cm. 2014.
El bosque. Impresión inkjet. 108 x 163 cm. 2014.
El rápido. Impresión inkjet. 163 x 108 cm. 2014.
Humo. Impresión inkjet. 163 x 108 cm. 2014.
Poste. Impresión inkjet. 163 x 108 cm. 2014.
Testimonials.
Texto over wall.
2009 - 2014.
Testimonials is a textual piece that brings together extensive interviews conducted with former and active hitmen, mechanics, and women who were part of, or close to, the combos of the city of Medellín during the period of open war between the Medellín Cartel and the government.
Through interviews gathered between 2009 and 2014, the work explores aspects related to the phenomenon of contract killing, establishing significant connections between the hitman, his context, and his actions. It also investigates the hitman’s relationship with his motorcycle in order to delve into his symbolic universe and reconstruct the motivations behind why contract killing is a social and cultural construct intimately linked to the phenomenon of drug trafficking.
