Juan Fernando Herrán (born 1963) is a Colombian visual artist with a master’s degree in sculpture from the University of the Arts in London. During his career, he has received several distinctions, including the Premio PhotoEspaña [PhotoSpain Prize] 2007; a grant awarded by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation in 1995; and the 1994 Burston Prize for sculpture from the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London.In a written work, Herrán constructs a perspective on the contemporary visual art processes he faced. Published in 2004, the art research project, Papaver Somniferum, (the scientific name of one of the varieties of the poppy flower) shows a process of artistic creation based on personal and historical memories as well as on cultural and geographic referents. This document provides a critical, modern-day perspective on the landscape in the context of the political function the writer believes to be fulfilled by art. Using his privileged position, the artist goes to the site that is the subject of the study, where he performs field studies of the evidence (photographs, testimony, images, and manuscripts). His purpose is to construct his own narrative through a visual and written discourse and to draw his own conclusions, calling into question the official histories installed in the collective imagination through the communications media, and barely discussed. For a better understanding of the project, Papaver somniferum (See: “Mirada y paisaje” [View and Landscape], doc. No. 855638 and “El panóptico observado: notas sobre la obra de Juan Fernando Herrán” [The Panopticon Observed: Notes on the Work of Juan Fernando Herrán] by José Ignacio Roca, doc. No. 864609).