Doris Salcedo is a Colombia-based sculptor. Her work, “Unland” is a series of three sculptural tables that serve as Colombians’ memorials of loss caused by massacres.
Doris Salcedo, Unland, 1995-98; (installation view at SITE Santa Fe), photo: Herbert Lotz. Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. https://www.sfmoma.org/
Salcedo combines two mismatched tables into one unit. She has also woven the tables with human hair, silk, and a tiny metal bed. A table is usually used for gathering place of family or community. In Unland, the missing part of the table is replaced with another part of the other table which emerges peculiarity, grief, and absurdity. It represents Colombians survivors’ pain and memories.
Doris Salcedo, Unland, Irreversible Witness, 1995-98. Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. https://www.sfmoma.org/
Salcedo listened to survivor’s stories about their trauma, pain, and loss. She tries to be a witness of the witness, or ‘secondary witness’. Unland brings the silence of the victim, her silence as an artist, and the silence of the viewer as well, to space where contemplation occurs.
Salcedo’s work is a manifestation of what Judith Butler says as an ethical demand when we encounter the other’s precarious life. Unland is an important artwork since it can be a representation of the precarious life that will awake people to stop the violence.
