Colombian-born sculptor Doris Salcedo studied at New York University before returning to her hometown of Bogotá to teach in 1980. Her work revolves around themes of suffering and loss, inspired by both personal and collective experience of trauma in Colombia. Composed of commonplace items such as wooden furniture, clothing and grass, her sculptures give form to the emptiness left in the wake of the death or disappearance of a loved one. By acknowledging and making manifest the void, her works probe its potential to be reappropriated as a space of mourning. She has become predominantly famous for her installation artwork, in which she incorporates the physicality of space, creating historically and politically charged environments.