Carolina Caycedo’s ‘Serpent River Book’ Examines Dams and River Ecologies

The essay by Lisa Blackmore in Afterall Journal 49 analyzes Carolina Caycedo's ongoing project 'Be Dammed,' which critiques megadam projects in Latin America. Blackmore connects the 1982 poem 'Farewell to Seven Falls' by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, which mourned the destruction of the Guaíra waterfalls in Brazil to build the Itaipú hydroelectric plant, to Caycedo's countervisualities that decolonize river ecologies. The poem describes how the dam replaced the falls' roar with 'corporate silence' and submerged landscapes, echoing Rob Nixon's concept of 'submergence zones.' Caycedo's works—including performances, installations, and collaborations with affected communities—use disobedient bodies as counterflows to containment structures. Her series 'Geochoreographies' (2014) involves community leisure activities oriented toward solidarity, while 'Water Portraits' (2016) features mirrored photographs on draped canvases. The essay argues that walls and rivers serve as metaphors for hydraulic order and resistance, highlighting the tension between containment and overflow in Caycedo's practice.