Residency Reflections: Trevor Aloka, Casa Tres Patios — Colombia

Being new in a country, it was hard to know where to start from especially in the beginning, but later things got easier with help from my hosts at Casa Tres Patios. I got oriented to the country through visits to different museums like The House of Memories Museum, Museum of Modern Arts and the Museum of the University of Antioquia, in the company of Leslie a curator at Casa tres Patios

Later, I was introduced to Ana Mejia Macmaster who I went on to collaborate with, she is an artist and an art professor at the University of Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia. We explored and discussed the way stereotypes are imposed on both our contexts of practice, we delved into the narcotics stereotypes that have been imposed on Colombia due to its past and why that is so since with the goal of finding ways to combat stereotypes. We also talked a lot about stereotypes that were put on Afro-Colombians and people in Africa specifically my own country Uganda. We later termed stereotypes as a ‘Yolk of the 21st century’, to mean how different people struggle to live and behave in a way they are not okay with because of what is expected of them, thus becoming puppets to the power of unfair stereotypes generated in society.

I also reached out to the Afro-Colombian community to get information on stereotypes imposed on them first hand. They invited me and I was able to attend four of their dance classes.

Tony Evanko, the director of the space continuously mentored me and I was taught new forms of creating art like lithography, a form that I intend to explore and work with in the near future since it relates to my work. Lastly, though the language barrier was a difficulty for me, I managed to reach out to different people so as to carry out some research.