_Dreams of Restitution_ by Javier Bernal-Arévalo at Flora: ars + natura, Bogota

Bernal, who graduated from the “Jorge Tadeo Lozano” University in Bogotá, Colombia, is known for his animations made from drawings. His work “Meteor 91 Days”, 2012, received an Honorable Mention from the Gilberto Alzate Avendaño Foundation at the Bogotá Art Biennial, in 2012.

During his stay in Honda, Bernal executed more than 700 drawings and animated them, resulting in the installation “Sueños de Restitución/ Dreams of Restitution”, which is being exhibited in FLORA: ars + natura, as of September 21. The piece consists of a video projection on smoke that shows a Poppy opium flower, that blooms, grows and dies.

According to the artist, “the unpredictability of changes that affects our days is a variable connected with all life processes. We all experiment, in one way or another, situations that interfere in our destiny and make us transform our daily routines. Sometimes they even change our whole existence!

For the curator José Roca, founder of FLORA: ars + natura, “Dreams of Restitution” is the esthetic search of this constant progression. It dwells on a research that explores a specific event; the process of substitution of illegal crops and how this situation changes the life of a man who ignores the global repercussions connected with good and evil, and how these consequences make his activity forbidden.

But this activity represents not only his mere subsistence. It also becomes his own identity, the basis of its traditions, and therefore the difficulty to accept any readjustment, regardless of its possible benefits.

The story is narrated by an imaginary man, but it is based on true characters that correspond to these behaviors. It describes his life through the detailed account of elements related to the production of a crop that after decades of practice has become his pride and the center of his life. But suddenly the respect of his own people, his social position in the clan, and his own memories, are all threatened the moment external agents inform him of the danger that looms if he keeps on with this activity, the harm it could represent for him, for his family and even to his own country.

From that moment on, his world crumbles, as he is not ready for the change. This story is not only an analysis of the problems related to the illicit crops; it is also about the changes caused by other similar harvests, which can be considered a negative influence, with topics such as global warming, macroeconomic issues, and many others that men like this can't grasp. I tried to recreate a space connected to this environment but surrounded by an aura of dreamlike desperation.”

According to the curator and founder of FLORA: ars + natura, José Roca, “ Sueños de restitución (Dreams of Restitution ) is an installation space encompassed by an animation showing the growth of an imaginary plant, the “Soñadera”, projected on smoke. Amongst the drawings of vegetable processes, notes of the wisdom on sowing and anecdotic related events, this flower expects us to immerse ourselve s in the vital cycle of the “Soñadera” crop (referred to the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, used for the production of opium and heroin) and the eventualities originated when these are considered illegal plants”.

“The poetic of the projection on smoke acquires a volatile effect ranging from the dimness to the clarity of dreams, the hopes and uncertainties that are planted in the idiosyncrasy of the rural culture”.