Carolina Caycedo’s artistic practice engages social issues, investigating women’s roles in politics and activism. The artist researches actions of community resistance against the environmental impacts of development projects such as the construction of dams and the privatization of water. The artist employs collaborative and collective practices, bringing together many voices, manifested through performances, videos, drawings, photographs, and installations. Born to Colombian parents, Caycedo has developed extensive research in Latin American contexts, including her constant involvement with social groups affected by trauma and whose democratic rights to housing and the environment have been disrespected. Feminist Histories features three installations by the artist. The work Muxeres en mi [Womxn in Me] (2010–2019) consists of hanging panels, two of which were created especially for the exhibition. The work brings together a collection of clothes donated by women from among her family, friends, and contemporary Latin American artists. The names of these women were added to those of other female artists of different generations and were hand-embroidered, as a list, between the panels. The pieces, sewn together, invite interaction by the public, who can handle them and put them on. For this installation, the artist invited women from the Movimento dos Atingidos por Barragens—MAB [Movement of People Affected by Dams], who participate with a performance that activates the work. In My Feminine Lineage of Environmental Struggle (2018–2019), Caycedo created two large groups of portraits of women environmental activists. The first group includes activists from different countries around the world; the second, Brazilian activists. The reverse of each portrait narrates the stories of each person portrayed. The work, presented on the crystal easels alongside MASP’s collection, belongs to the series Genealogy of Struggle and invokes the visibility and legitimation of the histories and memory of environmental activists. The artist’s portraits reveal the strength of hundreds of women who were murdered, raped, threatened, or criminalized, thus building a feminist genealogy of struggle and political consciousness.
— Beatriz Lemos, master in social history of culture, PUC‑RJ, 2019
