Miniature World
Concept and plan by: Abby Forero-Hilty; Photo by: Pedro Mendes
Artist’s Statement
Standing in the pedestrian-only town square of this intergenerational community, you’re likely to hear conversations between friends and families; the footfalls of joggers; irresistible rhythms of cumbia, salsa, and reggaeton, or even the giggles of youngsters, standing on a rocky outcrop, photobombing this photoshoot of their town. As you take in your surroundings, you’ll notice a literal mountain of truth-telling books written by survivors of the multi-billion-dollar adoption industry; a soft and colorful pile of larger-than-life handmade crochet “comfort” animals, and a welcoming Colombian casita – just the place to rest and enjoy a charla* and a cup of freshly brewed coffee. And if you were to hike up to that rocky outcrop, where the youngsters are having a good time, you’d get a bird’s eye view of the foundation of this miniature world. From up there, you can see that the town is firmly anchored in grassroots community organizing and activism. The ground beneath the town square is the first (and, to date, only) anthology that brings together the voices of 17 Colombian adoptees to create awareness and raise funds for DNA kits to help reunite Colombian families separated by intercountry adoption. In this theoretical home in miniature, re-culturation is moved from the conceptual realm to the embodied reality of the community’s inhabitants as they work together to reclaim, reconfigure, and reintegrate what transnational adoption took away from them.
Note: This theoretical home in miniature was staged and photographed in collaboration with Toronto-based miniature world creator and photographer, Pedro Mendes. (https://www.instagram.com/pedro.mendes.miniature/)
*Charla is informal for a chat between friends or acquaintances.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) / Canonical URL https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
