Fiesta de la Raíces

Carolina Caycedo is a Colombian artist based in Los Angeles. Engaging with issues of water and land stewardship, Caycedo explores relationships between the natural and built environment. Fiesta de la Raíces is a hanging sculpture weaving steel, rope, wood, beads, and natural fibers into a “plant portrait” of entwined root systems. Plants include Indian grass, blue false indigo, rosinweed, and prairie dropseed. These root systems extend up to three times the plant’s length underground, stabilizing and enriching the soil while absorbing water during floods. Caycedo studied with botanists, plant taxonomists, Native elders, and scientists at the Missouri Botanical Garden and The Land Institute to learn about perennial prairie and water-absorbing plants that grow along waterways throughout the Mississippi River watershed.

Carolina Caycedo’s accompanying solo exhibition, Carolina Caycedo: Growing Deep Roots, is on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis through January 4, 2027.

Courtesy of Commonwealth and Council.