Poppy Fields

I started working with poppies a few years ago when I meet young people in the Boston area devastated by heroin. They didn’t know where it came from or even less the consequences on the environment in Colombia. Inspired by these facts, I grew poppy flowers in my garden in Boston. For three consecutive springs, I studied the flowers and took photos throughout the process.

The installations consisted of the poppies flower photos I grew on my city garden in Lowe Roxbury. I installed the Decals in different public spaces such as the Massachusets College of Art, Babson Green Street Station Orange Line, and the Colombian Consulate.

In other instances, I installed a security camera, which placed the audience inside the monitor as part of the installation.

Being Colombian, I’ve had first-hand experience on the broad spectrum of consequences of drug traffic and its environmental impact. The effects of fumigation on the Colombian ecology will be unrecoverable. Awareness has to be generated around this problem in the industrialized world, which is the leading consumer of these drugs. The solution lies in the affluent societies that depend on these drugs.

This window piece is a beautiful way of representing how Colombia’s ecology is suffering the consequences of aerial fumigation.