Formes de l'indicible : confessions picturales de victimaires (Colombie)

Abstract

This article analyses the works and the impact of several painting workshops organized by artist, Juan Manuel Echavarría in 2007 and which lasted for two years, with the aim of allowing the fighters of the irregular war which has devastated the remotest places in Colombia and mostly affected small farmers to tell with pictures and colours their participation in the conflict. This project will become an exhibition, La guerra que no hemos visto (The war we have not seen). The exhibition constitutes an exceptional pictorial document in so far as, for once, the victimaries (paramilitaries, soldiers, guerrilleros) and not the victims took part in it. Their productions are autobiographical and anonymous accounts, but they also form a collective confession and a testimony about everyday life during warfare as well as a declaration against war.