CARTAGENA DE INDIAS.- Ruby Rumie: Getsemani: Subject-Object, 1998-2008, a multimedia proposal comprised of photography, video and painting, that deals with the undergoing gentrification* process in the historical town of Getsemaní, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. The exhibition is on view at NH Galería from August 17th through October 17th, 2012.

In this project Rumié investigates the collective trauma of Getsemaní, a poor Colonial neighborhood in danger of transformation as a consequence of urban development. Through a personally conducted census and photographic registry, Rumié reveals the neighborhood inhabitants that will eventually be displaced and dispersed, thus breaching their traditions, customs, everyday routines, social solidarity and collective memory.

The result is a collection of images with an extraordinary formal and technical rigour. The viewer is invited to reflect upon the intangible richness of this community which is about to disappear.

Rumié then creates – by means of various discourses – a physical and virtual space that portrays notions of ambition, urban utopia, vulnerability and fragility.

Cincomilnovecientosetenta, 2003-2007, the central focus of the exhibition, is a 30 ft. long installation composed of small acrylic and resin fragments. Silhouettes are painted in lacquer to represent each and everyone of the people living in the neighborhood.

In Código de Barrio, 2007, the neighborhood residents’ figures are painted on vertical wooden panels forming a barcodelike composition. Caminantes, 2003-2007, composed of 62 vertical boxes with each resident’s image on a box, referencing industrialized packaging. Thus, as the spectator walks through these box-characters installed in a procession-like manner the vital space of these people is invaded.

Proyecciones, 2003-2007, depicts faces and hands of children, youngsters, adults and elders, projected on a wall. Through these images, Rumié returns each resident’s identity and integrity, and rescues them from indifference and oblivion.

At the end, like in an epiphany, we witness the transformation of Objects into Subjects.