Translations:Martha Posso/6/en

In the early years of the new millennium, the artist developed the project Memorias de Resistencia (Memories of Resistance), a documentary and visual investigation on the resistance movements and rebellions of Afro-descendant peoples since the Spanish occupation of Colombian territory. In this work she approached the palenque of San Basilio, a village in the municipality of Mahates in the department of Bolívar. She spent time with the comunity, learning about their religious traditions, their language, and other social features of the life of San Basilio, a population that emerged in response to the European colonization enterprise in America from the fifteenth century and persists today, a valuable contribution to the country's multiculturalism. The research proposes relationships between the maroon settlements and their counterparts in Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Cuba, the Guianas, and the Caribbean.

Other projects and subsequent exhibitions have presented a visual perspective of the peoples of Colombia's Pacific region. Posso has participated in exhibitions such as Imágenes del Pacífico (Images of the Pacific), Tejiendo esperanza. Arte e identidad en el cabello afro (Afro, and Weaving Hope: Art and Identity in Afro Hair) in which she makes describes the construction of the social fabric, the transmission of cultural heritage, and the relationships between identity and gender in the communities of this portion of Colombia. In series such as Atrato and Río, she communicates her perspective on the link between Afro peoples and rivers, which have a clear organizing role in their family and social dynamics. In her photographs we see the impacts of disputes and conflicts over territory, river transport, and resource exploitation, as well as the historical abandonment of the region and its inhabitants on the part of the modern state.

Over the past two decades, the advancement of Afro-Colombian studies in the social sciences has built a dialogue with the visual perspectives of Afro artists. Martha Posso has shared her photographs to accompany editions of various books and research articles. In her role as a professor in the visual art program at Universidad del Pacífico, she has been invited to speak and moderate events related to Afro-Colombian aesthetics.