The Checkpoint

“The Checkpoint” is an artwork where the users can interact with my family's farm archive, which is located in Cumaribo, Vichada, Colombia. This archive is shown on small screens embedded on a table where the spectator sits down and interacts with it. Through physical interfaces the user can walk and give sense to the Checkpoint Farm memories. I started to develop this family archive when I participated in the art laboratory Open Mountain. This laboratory gathered people across Colombia who share and think about the Colombian violence and how this is expressed through family memories and territory. As the war in Colombia has been long and the government has failed to recognize it. Therefore it is not possible for the victims to clarify the real facts related to violence that they had experienced. “The Checkpoint” is an attempt to build up the experience of a story and not a story itself. The users create a different narrative every time they interact with the machine. In that sense the artwork recovers this lost truth, not as forensic or investigative reconstruction, instead as a collection of memories that are related to the experience of living in a place in conflict.