Nicolás Consuegra
Nadie sabe de la sed con que otro bebe (No one knows the thirst with which another drinks)
A residency program in the blazing hot city of Honda, Colombia, inspired artist Nicolás Consuegra to consider the difficulty in understanding the needs of a distant community. An important town during the colonial era as the main port on the Magdalena River, Honda is presently rife with poverty, unemployment, and environmental deterioration. Here he produced the work Nadie sabe de la sed con que otro bebé (No one knows the thirst with which another drinks), a variable arrangement of cut glasses in front of a mirror so that they appear whole. The title, a popular euphemism taken literally, affirms the impossibility of knowing another person’s experience. In a mirror reflection the glasses appear to be complete, manifesting an innate human paradox: a reflection of unity, but only as reversed projection or doubling.