In this exhibition, Bernardo Vallarino establishes connections between his work and the Museo Santa Clara, the former church of the Royal Convent of Santa Clara. The experiences of migration and displacement evoked in the artist’s works resonate with the history of the Poor Clare monastery, as well as with the architecture and iconography of the church. In this way, the museum provides a setting for the exhibition and offers interpretive perspectives that approach migration not as a phenomenon exclusive to the present, but as a historical experience that has shaped societies across different periods and geographical contexts.

 

The works on view bring together material traces and testimonies of people from diverse backgrounds who, in contemporary contexts and under adverse circumstances, were forced to leave their places of origin. Vallarino recovers traces of their journeys to bring their individual experiences into view against the immense scale of the migration phenomenon. Throughout the works, the artist repeatedly incorporates the international Morse code distress signal SOS (• • • — — — • • •). Recognizable across languages and cultures, this signal connects the individual stories behind each call for help with other episodes of displacement and adversity across a multitude of places and historical periods.

 

This broader perspective also allows us to recognize the history of the Santa Clara convent. The nuns were descendants of Spaniards who arrived in the Americas, linking their family histories to the transatlantic movements that took place during the expansion of the Spanish Monarchy. Furthermore, the wider convent community—which in some respects reflected the hierarchies and diversity of colonial society—included people of mixed-race, Indigenous, and African descent who helped sustain the daily life of the monastery through their labor. Although it is not possible to establish that all of these individuals had personally migrated, their ancestry may be connected to population movements, not always voluntary, both within the territory of the New Kingdom of Granada and across continents.

 

Two episodes of displacement were decisive in the convent’s history, although their geographical reach was limited. In early 1630, Damiana de San Francisco, Isabel de la Trinidad, and Juana de Jesús left the nearby Carmen monastery, accompanied by a large procession, to establish the new Poor Clare convent. Centuries later, on February 7, 1863, the Poor Clare nuns were forced to leave Santa Clara by order of the government of Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera, in accordance with the decree mandating the confiscation of Church property. Although this expulsion from the cloister does not constitute migration in the strict sense, it did entail forced displacement and a definitive rupture with the place to which the nuns had devoted their lives.

 

The religious references in Vallarino’s work find parallels in the architecture and iconography of the Museo Santa Clara. The reliquary-like structures framing some of the works engage in a visual dialogue with the church’s altarpieces, sharing formal and symbolic elements. This interplay helps place the physical testimonies of migrants within a context that, in the artist’s words, emphasizes the sacredness of life and the spiritual strength of those who have migrated throughout history.

 

As you move through this exhibition and recognize the connections between historical and contemporary experiences:

 

What traces do these stories leave in you?

What connections do you see between the experiences of migration and displacement presented here and your own life?