«MATZA Edgelands» [CO]

MATZA Edgelands is an art project that investigates urban realities. It mainly explores social relations in a changing world, which witnesses technological developments while watching the rise of insecurity, individualism and mass urbanisation. And it focuses on cities and their edgelands – with their diversities and complexities – as the core of these changes.

Medellin [CO] is no exception to this reality. That’s where MATZA invited 11 artists from Switzerland, Colombia, and Kenya to explore the notion of “social contract” in Colombian society. Imagining new forms of relationships in a dynamic and deeply divided context, the group explored the possibilities of exchange in the local dynamics.

The works created in this process were part of the exhibition «Common Grounds», curated by Séverin Guelpa and Anja Wyden Guelpa [CH] and shown at Bodega Comfama [CO].

The artists and scientists Sara Arango [CO], Felipe Castelblanco [CO], Alejandro Duque [CO], Ogutu Mu-raya [KEN], Onyis Martin [KEN], Sandrine Pelletier [CH], Margarita Pineda [CO], Valentina Pini [CH], Julie Semoroz [CH], Angelica Teuta [CO] and Tatyana Zambrano [CO] participated in the project.

ABOUT MATZA EDGELANDS

MATZA is an artistic initiative that focuses on the power of art as a generator of social transformations and innovation. With the three years MATZA EDGELANDS program, it aims to create the conditions for collective reflection and experimentation, seeking to outline new forms of social contract in a global context of mass urbanization, increased surveillance, and pandemic insecurity. The project invests in the urban peripheries, believing that the solutions are to be found in the margins of urban development and in the dynamism of local initiatives.