Mauricio Carmona Rivera is a Colombian visual artist and audiovisual creator from Medellín whose practice brings historical research into dialogue with video installation, film and other contemporary media. Trained in fine arts and history, he examines how cities preserve traces of political, environmental and social change. His projects often focus on infrastructure, territory and the layers of memory that remain hidden beneath everyday urban experience. By combining moving images, archival inquiry and site-specific investigation, Carmona Rivera turns overlooked spaces into material for reflection on how modern cities are built, controlled and remembered.
His 2026 solo exhibition Katabasis at Galería Santa Fe in Bogotá develops this approach through an audiovisual archaeology of the San Francisco River in Bogotá and the Santa Elena stream in Medellín, both of which were channelled underground during urban expansion. The installation follows these concealed waterways and records surviving architectural and structural traces beneath the cities. The exhibition runs from June to August 2026 and includes public talks, workshops and multisensory visits. Carmona Rivera is the winner of the XII Premio Luis Caballero and continues to work across visual art and cinema, using research-based methods to explore memory, territory, water and the invisible systems that shape urban life.