La Vida Como El Agua, Nunca Olvida Su Camino
(Life, Like Water, Never Forgets Its Path)
by Giana De Dier. Text by Ana Laguna.
Life, like water, never forgets its path proposes an exercise in reimagining—a sensory and emotional journey toward what once was the space we inhabited. How does one reinvent a past never seen? How does one illuminate the face of shadows? What murmurs and laughter once filled these streets? What stories peeked through the open windows at dawn?
These questions serve as the starting point for an exploration that seeks to give form and voice to the ephemeral, the lost, the forgotten.
Giana De Dier, in an act of visual and emotional archaeology, constructs a new imaginary that intertwines what could have been with what perhaps was. Her work, a tapestry of nostalgia and romanticism, invites us to inhabit the memory of those who walked these streets, laughed in these plazas, and dreamed under the same sky that shelters us today. It is an evocation that does not aim for precision but depth—an emotional resonance rather than a factual reconstruction.
Giana De Dier is a contemporary collage artist whose work centers the experiences and heritage of Afro-Caribbean people who migrated to Panama during the construction of the Panama Canal in the early 1900s. Her art places particular emphasis on the experiences of Afro-Caribbean women, highlighting the ways they navigated and occupied space, formed relationships and built communities. Her collages re-envision and explore the possibilities of what might be absent from photographic and historical archives. While challenging the erasure and misrepresentation of Afro-Caribbean women in historical narratives, she offers alternative perspectives that honor these women’s lives, contributions and histories.
De Dier studied Visual Arts at the University of Panama. Her collages have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama; the 58th. Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, PA; the 60th International Art Exhibition, Venice; the Museum of Modern Art of Medellín, Colombia; and 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London, UK.
De Dier lives and works in Panama City, Panama.
Photo by Luna Wallace.