Eliana Perez

Falso + (Edition)

Eliana Perez

Falso + (Edition)

Date

2025

Edition Size

10

Media

Archival inkjet print on Kozo paper, with silver leaf.

Paper

Zerkall 100 grams

Binding

Accordion

Dimensions

22 × 6.6 in

Pages

15

$ 3,800.00

1 in stock


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Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

From Eliana Pérez’s series about her home country of Colombia. It continues her evocative exploration at the bloody intersection of poverty, violence, and a global market economy.

Los Falsos Positivos (The False Positives) is a name given to a group of at least 6,402 Colombian civilians murdered by the Colombian army between 2002-2010, although that number could be as high as 10,000. In an attempt to generate statistics supporting the government’s war against rebel groups, and justify continuing aid and military packages from the US government, poverty-stricken young men and teenage boys were lured with the promise of jobs into remote areas then murdered by Colombian army soldiers. Their dead bodies were propped with guns, camouflage uniforms and boots, making them appear like rebel fighters killed while engaging with the Colombian army. After documenting these “rebel combatants”, soldiers dumped their bodies into mass graves. The hunting of these innocent civilians, carried out by rank and file members of the army, was ordered and incentivized by superiors, and the killers were rewarded with promotions, money and other perks. This atrocity has been traced to the highest levels of the Colombian military and government.

In relief on the cover, a moth hides under camouflage, a dreaded omen cloaked in militarism. In Colombian folklore, the appearance of a moth in one’s house is a harbinger of a death in the family. Disks of silver leaf pepper the text, reminding us of the perverse monetary incentives soldiers received for each murder. The horizontal linear format of the drawings mimics the visual reporting of these events in the media: corpses of the “false positives” dumped side by side into mass graves … processions of the young victims’ mothers, dressed in white and demanding justice … line-ups of soldiers and officers fabricating victories … “confiscated” weapons laid side by side, displayed for news cameras …the parade of ants found winding along every surface in the South American jungle … curtains of trees lining the highways where victims were ferried from their homes to their slaughter … an array of empty chairs awaiting occupants that will never return.

22″ x 6.5″. Extends up to 25 feet long for display.