This document discusses the work of the Colombian artist and medical doctor Libia Posada, based on Lección de anatomía (2000 – 2004) [Anatomy Lesson (2000 – 2004)], the work selected for the exhibition Otras miradas /Other Glances that was organized by the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2004. Carmen María Jaramillo curated the exhibition and wrote the essays and interviews that appear in the catalogue. Jaramillo’s introduction to Posada’s interview refers specifically to three of the elements in the latter’s work: Memory, Insistence, and Reticle, the fundamental themes that underpin the connections between art and medicine that she explores in her work. In her conversation with Jaramillo, Posada explains how she approaches the field of art both as a doctor and as a woman, each ‘identity’ influencing her creative process in its own particular way. The artist stresses her keen interest in working with the body, using forms that can allude to it without having to portray it literally. Posada also discusses how her work represents a sort of scientific discourse on the body.     

The chapter on Libia Posada (b. 1959) in Otras Miradas /Other Glances distills the artist’s ideas on the subject of the body and her constant reflection on the physical and psychic states to which the body can be subjected. She admits that her experience in hospital operating theaters has had a profound impact on her as an artist. As a result of her exposure to those clinical spaces, Posada combines the rational and scientific aspects of medicine with the possibilities of reinterpretation and creation that are accessible to her through the aesthetic nature of art.

The exhibition Otras Miradas /Other Glances organized by the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2004 presented the works of ten Colombian artists who each submitted serious, intelligent commentary on socio-political conditions in their country. It is intriguing to see how Carmen María Jaramillo (b. 1958), the curator of the exhibition, developed the project by allowing the voices of the artists to be heard through interviews as well as through the group of works selected. It is of particular interest to note how Jaramillo achieved a sense of intimacy in each conversation, a process that yielded texts that, despite their brevity, are both disturbing and revealing. The ten women artists included in the exhibition were: Débora Arango (1907-2005), Beatriz González (b.1938), Patricia Bravo (b. 1966), Johanna Calle (b. 1965), María Fernanda Cardoso, (b. 1963), Clemencia Echeverry (b. 1950), María Elvira Escallón (b. 1964), Delcy Morelos (b. 1967), and Gloria Posada (b. 1967).

This documentary archive also includes reviews of some of the other interviews that were published in the exhibition catalogue, all of which help to provide a broader understanding of Jaramillo’s curatorial narrative in Otras Miradas /Other Glances (see doc. # 1092368); “Libia Posada” (doc. # 1099306); “Patricia Bravo” (doc. # 1131968); and “Conversación con María Elvira Escallón” [Conversation with María Elvira Escallón] (doc. # 1091921).