Panel Presents Colombian Resilience Project

The tenacity of 200 displaced Colombian families is being exhibited in documentaries as part of the Colombian Resilience Project.

Emerson Writing, Literature and Publishing Lecturer Tamera Marko created the Colombian Resilience Project with her husband Jota Samper five years ago. They began the project to document the lives of the rural Colombians who were forced to leave their homes in the countryside due to violence and build new communities in Medellín, Colombia.

The Project is a volunteer collaboration between students from Emerson, MIT, Duke University, and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Medellín. In August 2010 the Project debuted 17 of the documentaries at a state-of-the-art theater in Medellín. The year prior, the Project brought young Colombian artists to the United States to exhibit their artwork.

On October 14, Marko presented clips from the documentaries and a multimedia panel featuring Emerson students, faculty, and community liaisons shared their work on the project.

Assistant director of the project Alex Castillo ’12 says through the documentaries he wants to celebrate, “history, culture and the people of Medellín.”