Back from Colombia : behind-the-scenes insight

Oeuvre dans l’exposition de Kader Attia, MAMBO, Bogota. 24 octobre 2024 – 9 février 2025
These weeks in Colombia have worked to bring about this necessary decentring for me. Everywhere there was this immense imbalance between the before and after of colonisation, and my viewpoint was just as steeped in moralising prejudices. In short, my ‘place’ as a well-to-do European wanderer in this country was constantly being thrown into the abyss.
Countless slaps in the face, countless ways of deconstructing prejudices and quietly trying to transform myself into a ‘simple’ observer: just listening when I see ancestral practices in the Amazon that we would disapprove of, and observing how these practices fit into the wider system. Fragile resistance in the face of major global transformations.
And when in Bogotá, at Mambo, I discover mediation systems that encourage connection and the strengthening of intuition, I think of ‘our’ Swiss history of mediation. Between 2009 and 2012, Pro Helvetia’s ‘cultural mediation’ programme was instrumental in sparking a nationwide debate on the relationship with audiences, so as to demonstrate the effects and ‘impact’ of the public funds invested in culture. I therefore see this as a welcome reorientation of cultural policies, after decades of focusing on developing the ‘cultural offer’.
Education and skills
In the early days, most initiatives focused on cognitive issues (learning, understanding); mediation, for short, was at the service of education and training. Since then, the initiatives have happily diversified, aiming to broaden the range of skills, from knowing how to do things to knowing how to be. You only have to look at the evolution of the skills identified by the WEF[1] to see that a profound transformation is underway. While analytical thinking remains No. 1, resilience, flexibility and agility are No. 2, followed by creative thinking, motivation and self-awareness. But how do you cultivate these skills?
This is where I was struck by the boldness of the mediation programme at MAMBO, the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá, which offers schemes to encourage connection and self-esteem, in particular by strengthening our intuition.
Tarot
The TAROT educational project aims to familiarise participants with this ancient game, exploring our intuition by playing and drawing tarot cards. ‘With this device, you can familiarise yourself with an esoteric experience by connecting to your inner sensitivity, explore your destiny or that of others, or learn about spirituality, vitality, power and desire’ (Deepl), a whole range of skills fundamental to self-awareness, empathy and active listening (7th place on the WEF list).
ReparaRenacer

Kader Attia, ReparaRenacer
The aim of Kader Attia’s exhibition ‘Repararenacer’ (repair / rebirth) is to work on historical reconciliation: ‘What are the historical wounds on a political, social or cultural level? How can we collectively repair our historical and cultural wounds? How do we live with colonisation today? In a continent where reflections on decolonisation are only just beginning, mediation and, more broadly, the attitudes of certain institutions are part of the slow, delicate weaving of new links with pre-colonial history.
At Bogotá’s National Museum, whose museography has adapted to new critical approaches to the country’s dominant history, director Liliana Angulo invites us to reflect on the restorative role of museums for ethnic peoples (pueblos etnicos) (see the article in El Espectador, 7.1.25).
So, of course, the question arises for Europe, and of course for Switzerland: do we have ‘our’ historical or cultural wounds? If so, what are they? This theme of reparation is also dear to us at the Foundation for Initiatives of Change, particularly through the Trustbuilding Program project, given that over several decades the Foundation has developed unique expertise in this field, inviting other approaches to cultural mediation.
Art education and connection
Discovering mediation tools that give free rein to intuition, intimacy and our inner and spiritual lives, which pre-Hispanic cultures are imbued with, opens the way to a mediation that is necessarily diverse and fertile, resonating constructively with possible societal failings; it would encourage the need to renew social ties, explore emotions, the need for sensory experiences in relation to the virtualisation of our relationships, etc. In short, isn’t mediation a way of adding sensitive strings to our bow to live and survive in a VUCA society? In short, isn’t mediation a way of adding sensitive strings to our bow in order to live and survive in a VUCA society? And reclaim a domain often monopolised by an assortment of offerings of often dubious value?
#arteducation #prohelveti #participationculturelle #arteafrodescendiente #mambobogota #reliance #connection
[1] The Future of jobs Report, WEF, 2025, https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/digest/ consulté le 8 février 2025.