Para la Coca

Artist’s country of origen: Colombia – Francia
Materials: 2-channel installation
Medium: video, installation
Size: 14 min
Year: 2024

Para la Coca is a film and audiovisual installation centered on the coca plant (Erythroxylum coca), co-authored with Cristóbal Gómez Abel, a member of the Bora and Murui Colombian First Nations, the work emerges from a dialogue sustained over more than ten years. Initiated by Gómez Abel, Para la Coca revisits a Murui myth of origin that functions as an ancestral law, offering ethical guidance on the proper use of the coca plant.

In this myth, coca is not an object or a resource, but a person and a deity, embodied in the figure of a young girl who teaches her father and community how to relate to the plant with responsibility, care, and reciprocity. The work challenges dominant colonial and Western frameworks that reduce coca to its extraction into cocaine, and instead affirms its cultural, spiritual, and medicinal significance within Indigenous worlds. Para la Coca advocates for the decriminalization of the plant by restoring its place within living systems of knowledge and practice.

The project was developed with the guidance of Nelly Kuiru, founder and director of the Escuela de Comunicación Indígena Amazonía Ka+ Jana Uai (La voz de nuestra imagen). Her role was central to the production and writing of the film. The work is shared with the permission of Gómez Abel and his community, acknowledging the responsibility involved in circulating the teachings of coca through the form of myth.

Creditos: Based on Jibina Marena Uay – Coca de la Buena Palabra, an ongoing script written by Cristobal Gomez Abel (Murui/Bora) and Laura Huertas Millan.

We acknowledge that the ancestral myth of origin of the coca plant belongs to the Murui nation. We thank them for allowing our interpretation with the purpose of de-stigmatizing the coca plant and psychotropics, as well as honoring and amplifying ancestral indigenous political, cultural and spiritual resistance in Colombia.

With
Cristobal Gomez Abel, Pedro Armando Sopin Morales, Harold Jeferson Gomez Florez, Gilber Olmedo Morales, Dewins Nicolas Gomez Florez, Didier Libardo Santana Gaspar, Carmen Sofia Gaspar Florez, Libardo Santana Florez, Diana Valentina Cuellar Gomez, Cristian Gomez Florez, Alina Santana Gaspar.

Recorded in
the Muiri Muina community,
Nimaira Náimeke ibike, Patio de Ciencia Dulce

Directed and produced by
Laura Huertas Millán

Creative and production consultant
Nelly Kuiru

DoP
Mauricio Reyes, Laura Huertas Millan

Sound recording
Laura Huertas Millan, Grégory Castéra, Angel Maria Fajardo

With the support of
PinchukArtCenter, Liverpool Biennial, CNAP (Centre National des arts plastiques), Institut Français (Résidence+), Mondes Nouveaux (Ministère de la culture).

More info visit: https://www.laurahuertasmillan.com/shows