Natalia Escobar

Natalia Escobar is a Colombian interdisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses moving images, sound, performance, and installations. Her pieces address Andean phenomenology, identity, and memory. Her work has been exhibited at renowned galleries and museums, including the Museo Nacional in Bogota, HKW and Berlinesche Galerie in Berlin,  CCD in Mexico City, and La Casa Encendida in Madrid. 

Since 2021, Escobar has focused on community pedagogical projects and action research, collaborating with different indigenous people in Latin America, creating projects to promote social and ecological transformation through artistic processes, emphasizing transdisciplinary collaboration as a strategy to challenge colonial norms.

One of Escobar's notable projects is AWERA, a multidisciplinary body of work developed in collaboration with Las Traviesas—a community of trans-Indigenous women from the Embera Chami and Katio people in Santuario, Risaralda, Colombia—alongside other Indigenous peoples, artists, and collaborators from Latin America and Germany. AWERA reflects on how colonial constructions of identity can be queered and explores the possibilities of womanhood beyond cisgender categories. AWERA tells of the need for unexpected collaborations as well as new and unpredictable kinships that go beyond the usual genealogical, ethnocentric, and anthropocentric relationships. 

Escobar's film ARIBADA, created as part of the AWERA project, has received international recognition. It was selected for the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes, earning a nomination for the Queer Palm, and has been featured at the Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival (FICCI), the BFI London Film Festival, the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center, and the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, where it won the Emerging Talent Award.

In addition to her visual work, Escobar channels her musical output through her alter egos Poison Arrow and her multisensorial project Pierce with Arrow in collaboration with Troy Pierce. Her first EP, If You Don’t Love Me (I’ll Cut Your Face), came out under her Poison Arrow moniker in 2018 on dBridge’s Pleasure District Label. In 2020, Pierce with Arrow, released their first single For Electra on Dais Records with a scent closely tracing the feelings and instrumentation of the song developed by Folie A Pluiseurs. In March 2021 they released their first LP Shatter accompanied by an incense paper produced by the Japanese incense house Hako and Folie A Plusieurs. She has performed and DJed at renowned venues, including Berghain, Kiezsalon, Funkhaus, Madeira Dig, Neue National Galerie, Schinkel Pavillon and She Makes Noise Festival amongst others.

Her latest endeavour KOAXULA, is a collaborative sound activation and performative project with artist Daniela Huerta. Drawing inspiration from fading cosmovisions and mythological female archetypes often overshadowed by dominant cultures, the duo seeks to reinvent hybrid narratives that explore different ways of being and existing, creating a dialogue between past, present, and future.

CONTACT:

natalia@nataliaescobar.com

PRESS ENQUIRIES:

ludovica@modernmatters.net