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Los estados de la palabra

With an exhibition design conceived by PKMN architectures, the exhibition is an homage to Gabriel García Márquez’s work through a selection of literary excerpts that reference the ocean.

The interactive exhibition “Travesía por los Estados de la Palabra” symbolizes a journey along the Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez’s work through a selection of literary excerpts that reference the ocean linking both countries and which is present in all of his books.

The creative concept of the event is born from Bottle the sea for the God of words: a speech given by the writer at the First International Congress of the Spanish Language in Zacatecas (Mexico) in 1997. In the speech, Gabriel García Márquez considers the power of words in the image era and the need to release them from the regulatory imprisonment they suffer.

Visitors start their journey in the city of Cartagena de Indias with a video-art projection that displays several art associations and personalities of the Colombian cultural scene participating in the collective reading of excerpts written by García Márquez. Belonging to fields such as the scenic arts, digital art, contemporary music, architecture, advertising, creative programming and innovation, these artists took part in the event together by means of cross-discipline collaboration in order to create a journey where the only author is Gabriel García Márquez.

This reading “symbolically releases” García Márquez’s words, which are taken by different artists to eventually convert them into 3D words.

Technology acquires a key role here, as new technologies have enabled 50 3D printers to be coordinated so they can work simultaneously day and night to gradually give life to these words and rearrange them into a new work. This time the tool is an interactive installation; the outcome is an interactive ocean of words.