«Rio Magdalena research trip» – Mirjam Wirz

Mirjam Wirz is a visual artist focused on photography currently based in Zurich, Switzerland. Since 2010, she has been working on «Sonidero City»  – a series of publications about cumbia music and sound systems, based mainly on photographic research and recorded conversations. The research started in Mexico in 2010 and evolved into Latin America, the Caribbean and Central Africa ‒ according to the geographic radius of cumbia culture.

In order to create the fifth volume of the publication series, Mirjam went to Colombia for a research trip between February and March 2019. She traveled along the Magdalena River, a major river of the country. Colombia was the birthplace of the cumbia, considered a prohibited ritual dance during the colonial era, in which the indigenous and African populations interacted. During the journey, the artist visited local cumbia communities, artists and professionals in cities and villages such as El Banco, Talaigua Nuevo, Sucre and San Jacinto.