
Carolina Caycedo: A Landscape Is Never Natural
Sally Frater
Carolina Caycedo’s multimedia practice explores the interconnectedness of nature and social systems. Through media such as video, sculpture, performance, and installation the artist has created a continually expanding oeuvre that details how the classification of the environment as “other” has allowed for myriad harmful alterations to be made to the natural landscape. The pieces that comprise A Landscape Is Never Natural focus on water, highlighting the ways in which human interventions in the form of dams and mines are posited as necessary activities that further “progress” – extreme modifications to the landscape that are normalized in the pursuit of capital in ways that minimize their impact on communities, pollution levels, the suppression of traditional forms of labour, and displacement.
Deftly illustrating how curbing water is a form of neo-colonial violence that extends throughout the Americas, frequently affecting Indigenous, Black, and riverine communities, the artist draws a through line that connects the exploitation and erosion of resources with cultural erasure. Caycedo’s work, however, also captures gestures of resistance that counter ecological devastation: efforts to position the body as a site of protest and collective action, acts of decolonization and assertions of Indigenous stewardship, and recognition of the right of the environment to exist as a self-governing entity.
Q & A: Carolina Caycedo
Carolina Caycedo is a London-born, Colombian, Los Angeles-based multi-media artist whose practice posits “territorial resistance, solidarity economies, and housing as a human right.” In advance of her upcoming solo exhibition at the Art Gallery of Guelph in the Fall of 2020, A Landscape Is Never Natural, she has answered a few questions that lead us to a deeper understanding of artistic motivations, her hopes for audience engagement, and her overall practice through themes of ecofeminism, decolonization and environmental justice.
Image detail: Carolina Caycedo, Serpent River Book / Libro Río Serpiente, 2017. Courtesy of the artist


A Landscape Is Never Natural is organized by the Art Gallery of Guelph with the support of the Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.
Gallery
About the artist
Carolina Caycedo
Carolina Caycedo has held residencies at The Huntington Gardens, Libraries and Art Collections in San Marino, California DAAD artists-in-Berlin program, amongst others and has received funding from Creative Capital, California Community Foundation, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Harpo Foundation, Art Matters, Colombian Culture Ministry, Arts Council UK, and Prince Claus Fund. Recent solo exhibitions include Care Report at Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź; Wanaawna, Rio Hondo and Other Spirits in Orange County Museum of Art, and upcoming projects at ICA Boston and MCA Chicago. In 2019, her work was part of the 45 Salón Nacional de Artistas Colombia, Chicago Architecture Biennial, and Art Basel in Basel. A participant in movements of territorial resistance, solidarity economies, and housing as a human right, Caycedo is a member of the Los Angeles Tenants Union and the Rios Vivos Colombia Social Movement.

View More Exhibitions

exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
This work chronicles the artist’s experience of pregnancy amid reports of high maternal mortality rates experienced by Black women in the U.S.

exhibition
January 19.2023 / May 14.2023
The first exhibition to explore pioneering feminist artist Mary Kelly’s long engagement with activist movements.

exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
Connecting aspects of Indigenous cosmology to wider cultural meanings, this exhibition speaks to the idea of seeing through space.

exhibition
January 19.2023 / May 14.2023
This exhibition speaks to the connections between art and social activism and to the visual aesthetics that emerge from protest.

exhibition
January 19.2023 / April 30.2023
Taking root during pandemic lockdowns, this installation acknowledges loss while offering a space for grief and mourning.

exhibition
September 14.2022 / December 31.2022
Curated by Middlebrook Prize recipient Erin Szikora, Homecoming engages land, language, and community, offering strategies to rethink our relationships to home.

exhibition
September 14.2022 / December 31.2022
Examining intersections between botanical explorations and colonization, Anahita Norouzi focuses on the plant colloquially referred to as giant hogweed.

exhibition
September 14.2022 / December 31.2022
This exhibition of Haudenosaunee souvenir beadworks responds to the history of ethnographic collecting by celebrating personal, economic, and cultural value.