Colombia

Since the violent imposition of Spanish colonial rule in the 1500s, indigenous peoples in Colombia have been subjected to multiple injuries produced by the extraction of natural resources and external forms of governance. This exhibition, authored and curated by Dr Jennifer Bates, uses visual and textual material including maps, photographs and documents to trace extractivism and the governance of indigenous peoples from the colonial era, to Colombia’s independence after 1819, through to the present day. It examines the continuities in dispossession and subordination of indigenous communities produced by the extraction of gold during colonial rule, and coal extraction since the 1970s. In parallel, the material explores changing forms of governance as they relate to and constitute indigenous rights, and the emergence of indigenous resistance centred on the reclamation of land. While revealing the significant strides made through indigenous political struggles for land, the exhibition also highlights the fundamental, historically rooted tension between indigenous land rights and the logics of extraction that lead to dispossession and damage to their lands.