Un mapa de la tierra del olvido: la construccion de colombianidad vives y la provincia (1993-2010).

The project aims to analyze the musical work of Carlos Vives (b.1961) and his band La Provincia, a Colombian popular music’s landmark over the last twenty years. The early 1990s were an important moment in political and cultural terms, due to the promulgation of a new political constitution in 1991 that emphasized Colombia´s multicultural and pluriethnic condition. The opening of the national market to the global economy and the growth of the country’s cultural industries offered a new ground for the renovation of the discourse on national identity. Vives’ first job as an independent bandleader, Clasicos de la Provincia, was released in 1993, and almost immediately, and against all market predictions, became a national hit that broke in two the history of the local musical industry. The present work will focus on three aspects of Vives’ work: the analysis of the historical and cultural context that made it a commercial success and a new marker of “Colombianness”; the study of music as a cultural product, in terms of its constitutive musical elements, but also in terms of its lyrical content and in its representation as a mediated image; and the examination of the impact of the work on audiences around the country and on other artistic and musical project . The research involves the use of methodologies coming from diverse disciplines, such as analysis of historical documentation, musical analysis, audience research, discourse analysis, interviews, and the examination of pop iconography. The goal is to offer a transdisciplinary reading of Carlos Vives’ work, analyzing his creative process, the constitutive elements of the cultural product, and its influence in the development of a particular idea of Colombian cultural identity.