过去十年，中国和哥伦比亚的关系，无论是官方还是非官方的关系，都经历了一个发展的过程，两国关系不仅在商业合作上而且在文化交流机制上都有所加强，例如在哥伦比亚就有两所孔子学院。然而，由于哥伦比亚基础设施的发展状况还停留在30年前，国内不乏暴力和沟通困难，因此哥伦比亚人对中国发展的主要印象是通过散布到世界各个角落的商品来想象的。

　　哥伦比亚首都波哥大的唐人街和世界其他地方(例如在旧金山、纽约、温哥华或洛杉矶)的那些只集中流通中国商品的唐人街不同。在波哥大，唐人街在首都(在农村也差不多)是由一系列断断续续的“时刻”存在的。大多是每天使用的商品化的日常物品或没有迹象表明他们是中国人。不像其他地方的商业产品，这些中国商品没有大企业的名称，就像他们传播的是当地的产品。

　　上海双年展的波哥大馆将展出四件新作品。每位艺术家以开放的观念针对“波哥大唐人街”并特别为上海双年展进行创作，以此对重商主义体制下商业和文化效应进行探索，每个人的想法都将有一个不同的转译。艺术家阿尔贝托·巴拉亚的作品与中国制造的商品流通有关，特别是原产于南北美洲的人造植物。唐人街相当于欲望的图像，把当代观众带入一种18世纪植物探险的情形，那时候，亚马逊和安第斯山脉的原始植物首次被欧洲工匠科学地记录下来。艺术家米莲娜·波尼拉认为，唐人街所在的地方就在今天的黄金博物馆，事实上唐人街“就是”黄金博物馆——这儿是哥伦比亚的文化遗产和国家财富原型的标志(当然，合适的说这是来自于印第安土著，他们的手工艺品是博物馆的首批藏品)。艺术家卡洛琳娜·卡塞多认为现实在一个地理点上更多的是分散而非集中：她的作品指向一个更复杂的具有隐喻性的情况，即货币全球金融关系建立于其上的三个实例之间的关系：一克可卡因的成本、一公升汽油的价格、平均最低工资。最后，加布里埃尔·锡耶纳的作品神秘地指向一个讽喻性的荒诞替代物，这可以看作具有讽喻性。

　　In the past decade both the informal and formal relationships between China and Colombia have undergone a process of expansion，not only in the mercantile sense，but also with the establishment of institutions dedicated to cultural exchange，such as the Confucius Institutes(Chinese counterparts to the British Councils，or Goethe Institutes)，of which there are two in Colombia. Nevertheless，in the Colombian imagination，the idea of China has developed mainly through the circulation of objects that reach even the farthest corners of the country，a country whose infrastructural development has been stagnant for over three decades，fraught with violence，and difficult access.

　　The Bogotá Chinatown is unlike the more formal Chinatowns that exist around the world(in San Francisco，New York，Vancouver，or Los Angeles)，as urban areas in which a high concentration of Chinese goods circulate. In Bogota，Chinatown exists but as a series of fragmentary “moments” around the capital city(and the country at large) that have mostly to do with the commercialization of articles of everyday use that bare little or no sign of them being Chinese. Unlike other foreign commercial presences，these Chinese commodities do not have large corporate names attached to them，and often circulate as if they might even be locally produced.

　　Four new works will be presented at the Bogota pavilion in Shanghai. Commissioned especially for this occasion，as an exploration of the commercial and cultural effects of a mercantilist system，each artist was approached with the open idea of engaging with the “Bogota Chinatown,” which for each translates into a different notion. For Baraya，whose work has already engaged with the circulation of goods made in China，especially artificial plants that are originally from the Northern region of South America，Chinatown is the equivalent of desired images，or the images of desire，turning the contemporary viewer into a sort of re-enactor of the botanical expeditions of the 18th Century，when the original vegetation of the Amazon and the Andes was first recorded，scientifically，by European draftsmen. For Bonilla，Chinatown resides in the exact spot where the Gold Museum lies today，and in fact it is the Gold Museum – a landmark of Colombian cultural heritage and the archetypal image of national wealth(appropriated，of course，from the native Indians whose crafts are the privileged objects of the collection).Lastly，Sierra has provided a piece that enigmatically points at an absurdist displacement that could be seen to be allegorical.