For a decade, artist Susana Mejía has asked herself the same question over and over again: who is the coca plant? To try to answer this question, she has visited several countries, consulted chemists, anthropologists and historians. Beyond the typical conceptions surrounding this ancestral plant, the purpose of this artist from Paisa has been to trace a deviation in the history of coca. To tell, through multiple disciplines, the evolution and power of this plant.
“The team starts with a question: Who has been the coca plant? This places the plant as a subject, an agent within an ecological, biological system. In addition, it allows for a lot of interactions. There is no interaction between different peoples that does not occur through coca leaves. It is a form of sociability,” said Cristina Vasco, curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Medellín.