About the project:
‘Colomb!anas: A Collective Bio’, is an initiative born from the literary work of Dr. Elena Garcés, PhD, entitled “Colombian women, their struggle to break the silence,” published in 2008 in English. The Spanish version was presented this year in Bogota at the International Book Fair. The goal of “Colombianas” is to compile interviews of Colombian women of different ages, ethnicities and origins, who give a collective account of the experience of being a woman in Colombia.
This project combines different broadcasting platforms, including a website (www.colombianas.org) that not only shares short videos of the interviews, but summons women to contribute their own stories. This interactive format, relatively new to Colombia, makes these stories more accessible to an ever wider audience.
The project seeks to build a diverse, intimate, and everyday portrait of Colombian women through their own stories, describing the experience of being a woman in Colombia. The participants of the project reflect on their stories and on the discrimination and inequality, that has historically existed in Colombia, regarding gender and human rights guarantees.
Most recently, the renowned Colombian actress, writer, singer, composer and broadcaster, Margarita Rosa de Francisco, participated in this project by sharing her story in an intimate and sincere way—revealing the little-known woman behind the public persona. Her story is told with the courage of someone interpreting the most complex character in front of a camera: herself.
In her interview, which can be seen at www.colombianas.org, Margarita confessed that she has never considered herself an activist, nor has she been publicly linked to causes. However, Colomb!anas managed to motivate her to share her experience as a woman ina genuine manner, without any pretenses or further aspirations than to add her voice to the collection of over 40 testimonies that are already part of this “living” biography, a project in progress that draws on the life stories of those who share them, and honors the daily struggles of real women.