CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA.- To coincide with the IV Congreso de la Lengua Española (4th Congress on the Spanish Language) SEACEX is organising an exhibition of contemporary art related to language in Cartagena de Indias. The exhibition will bring together artists from Spain and Latin America who work with language and words.

The exhibition, which is being organised by the State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad, will open on 25 March in the Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española (the Centre for Promoting Cooperation with Spain) and is also being supported by various Columbian and Spanish institutions.

The exhibition has been commissioned by Jorge Díez (Spain) and José Roca (Columbia) and aims to show that words are a meeting place and also to investigate the communicative possibilities and limits of language from the perspective of contemporary visual arts.

In addition to the work displayed in exhibition spaces and buildings belonging to the city, the city itself will also be the home for many of the pieces: billboards, posters, sound, visual arts and other events will take place in public areas of the city, opening up new channels for debate and communication.

The artists who are taking part will use the local context in their work, dealing with topics such as the specific cultural values associated with language; using local idioms and influences; the communicative possibilities and limits of language; misunderstanding as a creative resource; the limits of legibility; language as a creator of community and the dangers of translation and many others.