As of 2019, Colombia had 7.7 million internally displaced people, which according to UNHCR, is the largest population of internally displaced people in the world. Colombia has also been impacted by the largest refugee crisis in Latin America, the migration of 1.7 million Venezuelans who have fled violence, poverty and instability to find safety and a new life in neighbouring Colombia. What began at the start of 2019 as an artistic residency program has now transformed into one of Artolution’s key regions for ongoing programming. The Colombia teaching artist team is a mix of host communities, refugees and internally displaced teaching artists that have excelled at transforming the Artolution process into a methodology that adapts to the needs of the community at a moment’s notice, and transcends the barriers between cultures, geographies and histories.

In 2019 Artolution launched its first initiative in Colombia leading a training programme with a range of interdisciplinary artists, building on the rich traditions of public arts in Colombia, Venezuela and Latin America. The first projects implemented in Buritaca and Guachaca, united people from the indigenous, refugee and internally displaced communities of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta region with artists from different parts of Colombia who created three works of art that were created as a community. An integral and central component of this initial project was to ensure a safe space was created to enable and encourage open conversation and bridge building between all participants. The blueprint of this programme has subsequently been duplicated in different communities across the country through diverse creative initiatives which include murals, dance, theatre, and photography.Virtual exchange programs have connected local youth with their peers in other crisis affected communities around the world.

In 2022, Artolution was established as a Colombian independent organisation and was renamed Artolución and began working in the violence-affected Calipso neighbourhood of Cali, with a range of Colombian and Venezuelan children who between them, painted a 200 metre wall at a pivotal local school, crossing the “fronteiras invibilidades” (invisible borders) established by gangs and trafficker groups. Artolucion continues to expand with a primary focus of utilising public arts programs to bring together Colombian and Venezuelan children, connect through common storytelling and utilise public arts to create a new way of catalysing artists to facilitate social change.

The Colour of Resilience project worked with children who had recently fled Venezuela and their Colombian peers who had their own history of displacement in the multicultural city of Santa Marta. Working as a united team, the participating children chose to tell their story through the common iconography of nature to imagine a world where the impossible becomes a reality, and where resilience can take common histories and weave new meaning in the world.