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NO CUMBIA WITHOUT FOREST
NO CUMBIA WITHOUT FOREST
MONTES DE MARIA EL CARIBE QUE NO ES COSTA ES BOSQUE 2020
CARTAGENA, BOGOTA
6 CHANNEL VIDEO INSTALLATION
Using a composition of 3D imagery, landscape footage, and sound, this six-channel video installation creates a sensory experience that explores the profound relationship between the dry tropical forest and the music of cumbia, a rhythm that originated on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
The work reflects on how music in the Caribbean region is inseparable from its environment. Genres such as cumbia, porro, gaita, and bullerengue are not only cultural expressions but also extensions of the forest itself, as their instruments are crafted from local materials: the gaita flute from cactus wood, beeswax, and duck feathers; maracas from totumo gourds and capacho seeds; and the ensemble of Caribbean drums—the llamador, alegre, and tambora—carved from banco wood.
In bringing these sounds into dialogue with images of the forest, the installation underscores how rhythms emerge from ecological cycles, how instruments embody the materiality of place, and how music carries the memory of landscapes. The piece invites viewers to experience cumbia not only as a musical tradition but as an environmental archive, where each beat, breath, and vibration resonates with the living history of the forest.