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A special live linkup with members of the four Indigenous nations of La Chorrera, in the Colombian Amazon, forms part of the continued Open Research period for a new performance piece convened by artist Mark Maughan.

 

The long term vision for the project is a bi-national, interdisciplinary piece that brings to light a genocide fuelled by UK investment that happened at the height of the rubber boom during the twentieth century.

 

Roger Casement was the Irish-born British diplomat sent to La Chorrera by the UK government in 1911. What Casement found moved him to write a report so damning that Parliament called the Putumayo Atrocities Select Committee and all British investment was withdrawn as a result of its findings.

 

Made in collaboration with the four Indigenous nations still living in La Chorrera to highlight the unheard perspectives of this story, long term, the work will be an act of poetic justice that seeks to reconcile the damage done during a forgotten chapter of the UK’s colonial history.

 

A previous edition of the Open Research programme took place at Battersea Arts Centre, through a week-long programme in collaboration with thinkers, makers and activists from both sides of the Atlantic.

 

In this GIFT edition, audiences will hear the context around the project before a guided conversation takes place exploring themes related to the work, guided by questions prepared with restorative justice experts, including a live linkup with people from the four nations Mark is working with in La Chorrera.