Doris Salcedo
Doris Salcedo Untitled 2007, Art Gallery of New South Wales © Doris Salcedo
Untitled 2007
Two humble domestic cupboards have been fused and filled with concrete. Folds of fabric can be glimpsed within but will never be extracted. Doris Salcedo, who comes from Bogotá, Colombia, chose this furniture with care, after conversations with people killed or ‘disappeared’ in her country’s civil conflicts and drug violence. Across three decades, Salcedo has listened to the testimonies of many unheard victims. But a terrible silence prevails in her art, which bears witness to what has been endured by people who cannot be identified for fear of retribution. Instead of naming this monument, she leaves it ‘untitled’, as if conceding that language is inadequate.
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K–6 discussion questions
What items of furniture do you see in Untitled? How many pieces are there and how are they assembled? What’s different about them?
Identify and discuss the materials used in this artwork. Think of some things that are generally made from these materials. Why do you think the artist chose these objects and materials? What feelings do they evoke?
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K–6 activities
In sculpture, the positive space is the sculpture itself and the negative space is the area around it. Consider the positive and negative space in Salcedo’s artwork. Create your own sculpture that balances positive and negative space.
Salcedo has taken everyday items and turned them into something new. Select an everyday item and upend it, elongate it or turn it inside out. Take photographs of the object in unusual settings and allow your audience to look at it anew.
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7–12 discussion questions
Salcedo has filled this furniture and all the cracks and empty spaces with white cement. What do you think this symbolises? Is it to keep something in, or out? What or who might this something be?
Untitled uses everyday objects, each charged with a history of use and human touch. Discuss how this work bears traces of people no longer present. Who might these traces belong to? Research the motivation for much of Salcedo’s work and consider this question in relation to her response to the five-decade-long civil war in her homeland of Colombia. How does this work evoke trauma or unease?
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7–12 activities
Create an artwork by fusing found objects with a man-made material of your choosing. Think about how you might instil a certain feeling or mood in your work. Write a wall label that describes your artwork and the human traces connected to these objects’ original use.
Imagine where the furniture in this artwork may have come from. Who might have owned it and where might they have kept it? Write a description of these people and how they came to own these items. Create a storyboard to illustrate your idea.
Find an everyday object in your classroom and create a series of drawings of it from different angles. Combine elements of each drawing into one final drawing that explores the object from all viewpoints at once. Discuss the challenges of this activity. Did it make you look more closely at the object?