Doris Salcedo's Materiality of Mourning, a triumph in exploring trauma

Colombian-born artist Doris Salcedo’s The Materiality of Mourning at the Harvard Art Museum visualizes how trauma impacts the world around us through everyday objects. The exhibition’s dark lighting is not only slightly dizzying but also transcendent in its ability to create both an ominous and intimate environment to showcase Salcedo’s works. The trauma Salcedo has experienced because of political turmoil in Colombia from governmental civil war, drug cartels, leftist guerilla militias and right-wing paramilitary groups reveals itself in the different dynamics within each work. Through these visual channels, Materiality of Mourning evokes a juxtaposition of tenderness and pain, reflecting how trauma becomes embedded in the everyday lives of the people traumatized. They are neither survivors nor victims -- the atrocities they have experienced become a veil that changes the perspective through which people see their lives.

The first installation of the exhibit, Untitled (2008), contains sculptures made of furniture that have been transformed into either useless or dysfunctional objects. Two dressers lie prostrate on the floor, while a table sprouts out of its sides. The table remains functional, but the unity of these two objects renders the dresser unusable and the table with limited functionality. From a distance, the two works look identical, but upon closer examination, one table has been perfectly lined up with the right angles of the dresser, whereas the other table has been cemented into place at an angle. When coping with grief and loss, one can often fit together different pieces for new functions, and things that are broken have to be transformed into something useful. The juxtaposition of a perfectly-aligned table with a slightly off-kilter one posits that even though one may be better made than the other, they both lose their original functions, but are still usable. How one deals with grief may vary, but from afar, the conclusions one draws are eerily similar and illustrate a kind of collective and unifying conclusion of the human condition.

Thou-less (2001-02), the work in the space directly connected to the first room, contains multiple stainless steel chairs that have been welded together and then ripped apart, rendering them impossible to sit on. Singular chairs hang up against a wall and against other groups of chairs, as none of them can stand on their own. Similarly to Salcedo’s dresser works, Thou-less visualizes how, when coping with trauma, people forge new pathways to continue on with their lives.

Salcedo’s Disremembered series presents the normalization of trauma, but instead of utilizing furniture, the work is composed of three coats. When entering the installation, the coats seem to be wearable, but in reality, they are extremely thin and woven with needles. The works are striking in their deception, and in their details seem delicate and not deadly. Instead of being amazed by the violence implied by the needles, the sheer beauty of their reflective quality makes the fabric metallic and armor-like. On the wall opposite of the entrance, a coat hangs loosely, making it hard to identify what it is and taking away the metallic quality, as it’s not in the light. The first work of the installation lacks any ephemeral beauty; it confuses the viewer and forces further inspection. The viewer realizes the implied pain but also the nonchalant nature of lazily hanging the jacket off the wall. It incites the thought that someone just threw it off and did not care to lay it down carefully. Mourning can result in something beautiful when onlookers are unaware of the reality and pain of those who experience it -- they can literally wear it as a coat. People who would see them would not be able to realize that those who are in mourning are in pain.

The most striking work featured in the exhibition was one recently acquired by the Harvard Art Museum – Salcedo’s own A Flor de Piel (2013). The work is a hand-sewn tapestry made solely of rose petals that take up half the space of the room. According to the corresponding wall plaque, Salcedo describes the work as an offering to a woman, a Colombian nurse who was kidnapped and tortured to death. A Flor de Piel rids the flower petals of their soft fragility in order to maintain its construction, as demonstrated by the folds of the blanket. The three-dimensionality of the work represents how something delicate can maintain sharp structures, just as those in mourning continue their lives even in times of utmost vulnerability.

A Flor de Piel summarizes the exhibition in the most breathtaking way possible. It evokes the passing of seasons, the loss of softness and the utility forced out of objects during times of trauma and mourning that appear normal to viewers. Underneath that normality is a desire to forge a new future of the lost innocence of the past, the human desire for compassion and an existence without pain or torment. Salcedo’s work yearns to be examined and explored, and it is a show whose works can only be done justice in person, just as the experiences reflected in the works were originally experienced.