“Contained Reality” is a selection of over 20 remarkable boxes created by Colombian artist Mariana Varela. Drawing is at the center of her artistic practice. She reconfigures areas and territories charged with complex histories that reminisce our origins and allude to contemporary issues such as the consequences of an incessant armed conflict on its population, geopolitics, and the transformation of its landscape. Varela makes elaborate background drawings complemented by handmade ceramics or found objects in the foreground, resulting in spellbinding treasures. As a child, she was fascinated with collecting small objects, recreating everyday scenes, and bringing imagined worlds and situations to life. These boxes created in the past twenty years reflect and recreate diverse moments in contemporary Colombian history.  The boxes are containers that define the inside from the outside, light from darkness, and life from death. The images protected inside these small boxes seem to retain life, establish a link with the outside, and are an incantation against the threatening world.