Carolina Caycedo: Confluences Carolina Caycedo

Bringing together photography, installation, video, performance, and drawing, the exhibition highlights the many relationships between rivers and communities, addressing environmental issues and forms of resistance. The exhibition takes its title from the new installation Confluences, created collaboratively during the People’s Summit held alongside the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Pará, and presented to the public for the first time in this exhibition. Following its presentation at MASP, the exhibition will travel to El Museo del Barrio in New York.
 

Born in London and raised in Colombia, Carolina Caycedo (United Kingdom, 1978) grew up on the banks of the Magdalena River, an experience that profoundly shaped her relationship with ecology and her artistic practice. One of Colombia’s most important waterways, the river has been deeply affected by dam construction, a recurring subject in the artist’s work, which explores the symbolic, social, and political dimensions of water.
 

Confluences was developed in dialogue with the International Movement of People Affected by Dams, Environmental Crimes, and the Climate Crisis during the People’s Summit held in the context of COP30. The installation brings together T-shirts, flags, and banners produced by participants in the gathering. The work evokes the idea of confluence as the meeting not only of waterways, but also of people, cultures, and forms of resistance, bringing together diverse experiences of struggle in defense of rivers and territories.
 

Curated by Isabella Rjeille, curator at MASP, the exhibition highlights a trajectory in Caycedo’s practice that begins with the denunciation of social and environmental injustices and moves toward creating a space for proposal, repair, and healing. Throughout her career, water has remained a central force and structuring element of her artistic practice. This interest is expressed, among other works, in the Cosmotarrayas [Cosmonets] series (2016–ongoing). Developed through the artist’s engagement with riverside communities, the sculptures are inspired by the way fishers hang their nets from tree trunks to dry. Composed of suspended artisanal fishing nets filled with objects collected by the artist, the Cosmotarrayas bring together stories, memories, and traces of the many forms of life that exist within and around rivers.