Maria Alejandra Astralaga

"A Riverine Journey"

Section MS12, Riccardo Badano

Keywords: borders, water, indigenous, photography

To this day, there are approximately 4 million Venezuelan migrants in Colombia; most of them decide to cross the border travelling along waterways, especially the Rio Meta, a major left tributary of the Orinoco. The 1,100 kilometres long riverine journey along the banks of the Rio Meta is disseminated by illegal mining activities, armed groups, and several indigenous reservoirs. These different factors turn upstream and downstream mobilities into a challenge for people in transit, reconfiguring the river as a medium of transportation, an infrastructure of violence and care, a prison and a home.   The work intends to visualise, using sublimation printing, the many layers Venezuelans come across upstream and downstream of the Rio Meta.