Movements in Place: The Community-Based Interventions of Jorge William Agudelo Muñeton & Elena Pardo

In May 2018 more than 24,000 people were displaced as the waters of the immense Cauca River in northwest Colombia inundated the surrounding canyon. This flooding was not the result of seasonal rains or storm surge but rather a consequence of the construction of the Hidroituango dam. The hydroelectric facility, while initially envisioned in 1969, was not initiated until 2010 and has precipitated much violence—from the murder of land defenders to the destruction of ecosystems—in its ongoing and embattled construction. The Canadian government has invested $250 million of the proposed $5 billion budget for the ill-fated project.​​¹

Vancouver-based Santacruz Silver Mining Ltd. acquired the Veta Grande silver mine in the state of Zacatecas, Mexico in 2016.​​² While silver has been mined in the region since the mid-1500s—the town of Vetagrande was itself founded as a result of mining activities—the work has become more invasive and impactful in recent years. Houses in Vetagrande are fracturing as a result of this intensified mining activity, and roads have been destroyed by the mine’s machinery. Whole hills have disappeared. Residents of the region are beginning to organize in order to hold the company accountable.​​³

Approximately 1,000 kilometres southeast in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, lies the community of Capulálpam de Méndez, where the threats of dispossession and environmental degradation associated with mining have emerged in recent years. The previous federal government granted mining concessions in many parts of the surrounding Sierra Juarez region to foreign companies, including Vancouver-based Continuum Resources Ltd. that has been exploring for gold in the region, hoping to reopen a long-closed mine. The community, however, has organized and has so far managed to stop any mining activity.​​⁴

What brings these places, communities, and struggles together is, among other concerns, the ways in which creative practices have been mobilized in resistance to extractivist dispossession. The collection of images that follows brings together the work of Columbian organizer-artist Jorge William Agudelo Muñeton and Mexican filmmaker Elena Pardo. Both artists’ recent projects tackle issues of resource extraction through performative, lens- and print-based practices. 

Jorge William Agudelo Muñeton’s work with the Desmantelen Hidroituango YA! project (2018-present)​​⁵ convenes diverse artists and organizers in Medellín, Colombia and beyond who use embodied performative urban interventions—or what they call interrupciones, interruptions—in resistance to the Hidroituango hydroelectric dam. The performative interruption “ríos para la vida, no para la muerte” (rivers for life, not for death) that creates moments of confrontation with the necropolitics of Hidroituango is one component of the multifaceted project. Another is the serigraphic work in collaboration with the Beehive Collective,​​⁶ a series of images of the animals of the Cauca Canyon photographed before the flood that banished them from their territories. The Desmantelen Hidroituango YA! project in all of its manifestations demands just that: the dismantling of Hidroituango.

Elena Pardo’s Pulsos Subterráneos (2019) is an expanded cinema performance that combines 16mm film projection, experimental narration, and live music to explore daily life in the mining-impacted communities of Vetagrande and Capulálpam de Méndez. The film projections focus on the landscapes of both communities, since, as Pardo believes, the fight against dispossession is reflected there. These landscapes include both what is visible as well as what happens underground, and are conjured through narratives told by community members in interviews and talks. At its core, Pulsos Subterráneos reflects upon the different ways in which the communities of Vetagrande and Capulálpam de Méndez have organized to resist extractive projects, something that Pardo believes we can learn a lot from.

This collection of images brings together documentation and stills from Desmantelen Hidroituango YA! and Pulsos Subterráneos, juxtaposing these two artist-organizers’ distinct mediations of extractive conflicts in their respective regional contexts and situating them within larger discussions of hemispheric performance, collaboration, and the politics of place. As Donna Haraway believes, “movements in place, connected with other movements in place, makes us have a greater impact. We become great because we connect.”​​⁷

Zoë Heyn-Jones is a researcher-artist and cultural worker who grew up on Saugeen Ojibway land in Ontario (Canada) and on Tz’utujil/Kaqchikel Maya land in Guatemala. Zoë holds a Ph.D. in Visual Arts from York University and a graduate diploma in Latin American and Caribbean Studies from CERLAC (the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean, York University). She lives and works in Mexico City and Tkaranto/Toronto.

Feature image: Jorge William Agudelo Muñeton, Ecocidio, 2019. Site-specific performance located in front of the corporate building of Empresas Publicas de Medellin, Medellín, Colombia. Image courtesy of the artist.

1. See Mary Atkinson, “Colombia’s Hidroituango dam: ‘There’s a new war taking place,’” Al Jazeera, May 31, 2018, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/colombia-hidroituango-dam-war-place-180526112239017.html; Joe Parkin Daniels, “Colombia: Tens of thousands ordered to evacuate after floods at dam,” The Guardian, May 16, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/16/colombia-tens-of-thousands-of-ordered-to-evacuate-after-floods-at-dam.
2. See Van Phu Bui and Michael F. O’Brien, Technical Report, Veta Grande Project, Zacatecas State, Mexico, August 20, 2019, Report No.16001RT005 accessed February 28, 2020, http://www.santacruzsilver.com/i/pdf/reports/NI_43-101-Report-Veta-Grande-Project-2019-08-28.pdf.
3. Email interview with Elena Pardo, January 19, 2020.
4. Pardo, email interview. See also Óscar Rodríguez, “Pueblo indígena de Oaxaca gana juicio para revocar concesión a minera,” Milenio,February 11, 2020, accessed February 29, 2020,  https://www.milenio.com/estados/pueblo-indigena-oaxaca-gana-juicio-revocar-concesion-minera.
5. https://medium.com/@caosdisfuncional/desmantelen-hidroituango-9550c716b0cd.
6. https://beehivecollective.org/about-the-hive/who-we-are/.
7. “Donna Haraway y Andrea Ancira en conversación: Solidaridad multi-especie y justicia reproductiva,” Terremoto,February 22, 2020, accessed February 29, 2020, https://terremoto.mx/donna-haraway-y-andrea-ancira-en-conversacion-solidaridad-multi-especie-y-justicia-reproductiva/.

This article is published in issue 37.2 of BlackFlash magazine. Get this issue