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Doris Salcedo makes sculptures and installations that function as political and mental archaeology, using domestic materials charged with significance and suffused with meanings accumulated over years of use in everyday life. Salcedo often takes specific historical events as her point of departure, conveying burdens and conflicts with precise and economical means.

Instillation vs. installation

Both words are nouns in this case.

Instillation (n.) means filling up, implanting, infusing; in another sense, it means inspiring, inculcating. Ex. "The doctor recommended the instillation of eye drops at bedtime."

Installation (n) means putting in place, setting up. Induction, investiture, inauguration. Ex. "The new officers were installed."

When you instill, you put something in, as in medicine. When you install, you set up or build or inaugurate.

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Noviembre 6 y 7 (detail) 2002

Bogota, Colombia

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Disremembered IV 2015

Silk thread and nickel plated steel

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Photo: Patrizia Tocci http://whitecube.com/artists/doris_salcedo/

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