Reyes Santiago Rojas (TERRAZA)

Reyes Santiago Rojas / TERRAZA

I am a Colombian visual artist based in Oslo. I believe that personal memory is a vital material, in order to recognise in ones own experience everything that is outside of me, perhaps distant or almost imperceptible. My work navigates in adaptation and change, moving towards a lighter place, trying to dismantle and reduce heavy processes and bring them to their minimum portable part.

I move towards recognizing myself as an immigrant, in the territory of distance. I look for and use minimal elements in interventions, installations, images, and actions to understand a tiny part of the universe. I find in this a deep motivation to investigate material culture and its linkages between the coloniality of nature and emotions. I propose a form of anarcheology of consumerism; using material that represent the interstice between the new and the used, to search within the endemic relationships where the natural is confused with the artificial.

Publications

La Dulzainera (2025) is Terraza´s first publication, and it is the first in a series of singles about people who make music but are not professionals, and they are not seeking fame or glory. They are simply people who play for pleasure and intuition.

In 2024, with the support of Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond (BKV), I travelled to Colombia to record two songs with my mother in audio and video. My mother plays the harmonica. She is 82 years old and has never been a professional musician. But she plays for pleasure, by instinct, and simply because she likes it. She plays when she is happy and when she is sad. My mother and I, due to the distance between us, began to communicate through songs.

The vinyl includes the recording of two songs she wrote, “Sentimental” and “Recuerdos de mis paseos” (Memories of my trips), and a text. The songs were recorded on the terrace of her home and my childhood home in Bogotá, Colombia.

7" vinyl singel record.
Music by Ana del Carmen Figueroa (Dulzaina, Armonica or Riolina)
Directed and produced by Reyes Santiago Rojas – Recorded on the roof terrace of the house in Av. Cra 50 No. 5-81. Bogotá-Colombia
‘Sentimental’ recorded by Katrine Ringhus
‘Recuerdos de mis Paseos’ recorded by Daniel Castilla (Gloria Sonora)
Mixed and mastered by Daniel Castilla
Design by Marie Victoria Brandtzaeg Slaatta – Cover photo by Reyes Santiago Rojas
Recorded during October - November 2024 – Pressing: Krakatoa Record