This event will centre on the screening of two films relating to resource extraction in Colombia, followed by a question and answer session with their directors, and finally a wider panel discussion on the aesthetics and politics of representing resource extraction.
Frontera Invisible: Land in Conflict (2016) is the true story of communities trapped in the middle of the world’s longest war, in which big landowners’ rush for palm oil to produce ‘green’ fuel has displaced peasant farmers and indigenous people. It has destroyed natural habitats and concentrated land in the hands of the rich. One part environmental documentary and one part social research through victims’ testimonials, Frontera Invisible gives voice to the local communities that are fighting hard to reclaim their land while exposing the major pitfalls of biofuels policy. In Colombia the government signed a peace deal with rebel group FARC which ended 60 years of armed conflict. A war that has displaced more people than the entire population of Denmark. Meanwhile, the government plans to keep planting palm to supply Colombia and Europe with ‘biodiesel’. Will peace return the land to its true owners or merely hand it over to Big Agribusiness?
lchii-Carbén-Carbén-lchii (2017) is a short film by Colombian visual artist Carlos Reyes Florez. He has an MA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London, and his work revolves around touch, the other, and alternative approaches to touch/touching.