This project begins a long-term commitment to create a monumental codex of thirty works, each one dedicated to an article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. My goal is to transform those rights into illuminated paintings—very large raw canvases that carry forward the spirit of manuscripts and codices while speaking to our present.

In 1991, while I was a student at the Universidad de los Andes, my country was exhausted by violence, bombs, and fear. Students all over the country organized the Séptima Papeleta—the Seventh Ballot—a civil movement that called for change. I campaigned for it, I marched for it, and I witnessed how an entire generation came together to imagine a different future. Somehow, we found the strength to write a new constitution—one that gave voice to Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and marginalized communities for the first time. It felt magical. For a moment, as a country, we felt hope.

Soon after, the poet Jairo Aníbal Niño wrote El Árbol de los Anhelos, a children’s book to explain the new Constitution. His words captured that moment perfectly—the dream of building a society for everyone.

Years later, I felt that same hope when I discovered the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Created in the aftermath of World War II, it has become the most translated official document in the world. It was written by representatives from many nations, cultures, and faiths—an inclusive text inspired by different philosophies, religions, and legal traditions. Because it is not legally binding, it reads more like a path anyone can follow. It has inspired treaties, constitutions, and international laws around the world and, to this day, remains the most important project of the United Nations.

These paintings speak to that quiet space in every human heart that longs for a better life for all—the feeling captured by the poet who called it El Árbol de los Anhelos, the same feeling we recognize when we hear the words “I have a dream.”

For more than twenty years, I have kept a small booklet of the Declaration within sight in my studio—a quiet reminder of that dream. Many times I tried to express it through art, but I didn’t yet have the right language.

Today, through calligraffiti—a method I have been developing over the past two years—I finally have that language. My calligraffiti joins the reverence of manuscripts and illumination with the rebellious energy and scale of graffiti. It is both intimate and monumental, both personal and collective.

These paintings will not be created in order. They will respond to the moment I am in—to what my future brings that I cannot yet know, to each grant, to new feelings and emerging ideas. They will evolve over time. Sometimes I will create a canvas to explore a specific theme; for example, one will speak about genocide. It will be a way to open a conversation we still need to have.