Graduation project
Amulets from the River
Maria Daniela Palomá Iriarte
The Magdalena River in Colombia is narrated as an archive of the country’s folklore, challenging the linearity of histories and futures.
Real and fictional stories coexist in recounting Colombia’s past, where violence has made it hard to remember, recognize, and reconcile traumatic events. Maria Daniela Palomá Iriarte challenges the institutionalized idea of a country without memory, exploring folklore as a site of living memory that transforms across generations. Amulets from the River is a video installation that reads the Madgalena River as a folkloric archive of Colombia. One film presents the river’s past through folkloric stories, and a second film presents a fabulated narrative that transforms the original stories. The many variations presented complicate the perceived linearity of history and speculate on mutable futures.