“In Drifting Away my intention is to draw
attention to some of the victims of forced disappearances of the Colombian
armed conflict. The project is a response to a number of press reports and news
broadcasts which explain how the paramilitaries and the guerrillas torture
people, mutilate them and make them disappear by throwing their bodies into a
river. This is the source of the saying that the rivers of Colombia are the
world’s largest graveyard,” comments Diettes.

Erika Diettes photographs the possessions of the
disappeared submerged in water to create a visual memorial to each victim. The
reflections in the water both allude to Colombia’s rivers and the surviving
memory of the victims, while the scale and transparency of the work
universalize the pathos of those left to mourn their loved ones.