I agree with George Orwell when he stated: "History is written by the winners." It does not take a fortune teller to understand that what may seem like a bad omen or predestination normalizes violence and exploitation as the basis of a stigma making us wonder how humanity still stands.

Carlos Castro Arias, Colombian visual artist, professor and musician who has been a resident of San Diego, USA, for 10 years, sorts this precarious balance from a distance. This confirms that he has not lost his ability to be amazed, he is still aware and follows what happens in his country, as he perseveres to rebuild projects that conceptually subvert the unique form of resistance of his homeland and Latin America in general. And he expresses it unambiguously: "I think it is important to re-examine and look back at the elements of history that have shaped the way we think and see the world, so I think it is interesting to show a different point of view, and to achieve a somewhat unexpected relationship between two historical moments or two symbols or objects that allow us to question them and pay attention to things we take for granted, and that is what I think is interesting to achieve with a piece."

The most remarkable thing is that this artist relates elements as simple as confiscated knives and transforms them into music boxes, where the melodies of military marches of the great empires resound, drawing a parallel between great wars and battles waged by those who use this common utensil to survive.

In this regard, Carlos comments: "Weapons are objects employed both to defend and attack, as well as to wage war at the highest level." This statement also brings to light the cultural syncretism and the enthroned violence that we are surrounded by around the world. Therefore, he is very firm when he states "violence from one over another is a constant that also happens in nature, not just for humankind." However, it is important to note that he does not force us to take any specific stance. Instead, he draws a historical and reflective itinerary where he appropriates certain symbols and gives them new meaning so others interpret and question them, or they assign them the load they deem adequate. His sculptures of Christopher Columbus and Isabella the Catholic that were intervened with plastic beadwork, a symbol of the Inga culture of Putumayo are an example of this. Carlos is very clear on one point: "We cannot think about these 500 years without Columbus. We grew with the intention to decolonize, but it is impossible to erase that past. These characters have moved all of us and we cannot forget, nor knock down, thins we cannot change. It is important people know this because history is cyclical."

This precedent can uproot us, but whether we like it or not, it has been shaping a collective and personal narrative. The artist bets on archetypes that he reconfigures, inspired in William Faulker's quote: "The past is never dead. It's not even past" to refer to one of his most remarkable anthological projects, where he appropriates elements from the past to question the present. Although, within this constructive alchemy, it stands out that he does not embody the drama of those who carry the weight of a martyring mythology, which makes the spasms and horror of the colonialist past come out of our pores like a traumatic pustule. This due to his reconfiguration of symbols of power, icons in popular culture, and the genres of the academic tradition in art history, creating hybrid pieces that allude to commemorative sculptures, tapestries, paintings and interventions as allegorical as a police car that shelters a church inside. In such a curious temple, we can also hear music, with the artist clearly attempting to make viewers wonder "what kind of a joke is this?" And, simultaneously, he does it so viewers see it is futile to try to auto-tune and correct the imperfections or out-of-pitch notes of the political or religious world. The following statement is another irrefutable proof that, for Carlos, music is a vital component:

"Music is experienced and felt, and it is its spirit and energy that nourishes me with sound and visual images, and I recognize myself in cumbia, salsa and rock because of their rebelliousness and because music gives me the possibility to experience reality from a less rational point of view."

For this reason, it would be out of question to feel that everything is a cover because by carefully observing this artist's work we can declare, without fear of being mistaken, that he is a kind of "dockworker" who rearranges in his own way, even revealing the other side of our historical burden. Yet, he does it without the intention of proposing a single truth, nor exclusively with the idea of questioning or parodying, but rather with the idea of unfolding horizons that broaden the perspective of viewers, leaving them free to interpret and act in front of his work. About this, he is absolutely consistent and manifests it without any concealment: "Art is a way of reflecting and understanding the world, history, the things that surround us, the sensitive, and that goes far beyond social criticism. The most beautiful thing about art is that it allows us to broaden those closed views, and to expand our minds and develop new neura connections, which are above questioning capitalist models or social systems."

In this sort of parallel conceptual and historical melting pot, it must be understood that this creator not only refers to the present of his personal history, but also to his early childhood, to which he is still inevitably linked: " feel that life goes around in circles and there are things we have experienced in the past that we keep dealing with. Sensations, trauma and images and, for me, art, are an opportunity to reflect and go back to those moments, to those images that move us and 'turn your stomach', not from logic, but from instinct. Because that reflection is still there in childhood and in the way we were raised, and this is a way of responding to that dogmatic way education is sometimes presented. I find it interesting to reflect on that in my art, because it is like looking for other images, other relationships and creating those new perspective in the viewer."

Let us agree, then, that what Carlos Castro does with his appropriations is also a form of conquest, in which he traces the map with his concerns, affections, frustrations and longings, resorting to a kind of oxymoron, through which he combines apparently opposite realities (in time and space), and shows that everything goes, returns and continues in perpetuity in a sort of loop and, therefore, his proposal appeals to us not to see history from an armchair, but to take part in it