ABSTRACT
One of the most important milestones of Colombia’s recent history was the proclamation of a peace accord between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla. That historic agreement was to be democratically ratified through a referendum held in October 2016, framed within large marketing efforts to “sell” peace to a wide political spectrum. Ultimately, those efforts proved insufficient and the hope for a democratic ratification of the peace process cracked due to years of mistrust and anger toward the different actors of the conflict. Although the deal survived that legitimation crisis, the ongoing violence against social leaders in Colombia reminds us that peace is still a project in progress. With this background in mind, the epilogue addresses the challenges of a post-conflict scenario in contemporary Colombia and the ways in which the cultural market has responded to those challenges, as attested by recent artworks such as Doris Salcedo’s installation Quebrantos (2019), a communal pro-peace event to honor the memory of 165 social leaders violently murdered since 2016. This installation is paradigmatic of the ongoing links between the cultural market—along with its commodification of Colombia’s violences—and the current national juncture.
