Since the late 1960s, Camnitzer has created works in a variety of media that scrutinize structures of geopolitical power, frequently addressing the long history of imperialism in Latin America. His 1995 installation Amanaplanacanalpanama manifests those concerns by examining the history of the Panama Canal.
The focal point of the multimedia project are nearly fifty brass plates resembling memorial plaques. They are engraved with texts and images culled from archival materials including newspapers, letters, and an official U.S. government-backed history of the Panama Canal project written in 1913 in anticipation of its inauguration the following year.
These sources, which originate mostly in Europe and the United States, reveal illuminating narratives—the colonial roots of the enterprise, a disregard for the wellbeing of local and indigenous communities, racism against migrant laborers, and the self-aggrandizing success of the United States in the wake of French failure. By focusing on media coverage and correspondence (including his own about the project itself), Camnitzer’s critique transcends the subject to scrutinize the modalities by which such events are historicized by those in power.