LA

ESCUELA___

Aiming to integrate new perspectives and research fields into the platform, LA ESCUELA___ announces the participation of six Guest Scholars from different disciplines in the design of its 2023 programming. Ana María Durán Calisto (Ecuador), Nicolás Valencia (Chile), Juliana dos Santos (Brazil), Federico Pérez Villoro (Mexico), Rolf Abderhalden (Colombia), and Nayse López (Brazil) will weave new perspectives through the contributions of creatives and intellectuals from across Latin America to the fields of arts and education. The confluence of their investigations seeks to generate frameworks for reflection and transdisciplinary action departing from the visual arts, architecture, and performing arts.

LA ESCUELA___ is a platform for radical learning in public spaces co-created with the continuous rotation of collaborating artists, researchers, and educators to address the question of how a school can be conceived, shaped and activated through artistic practices and pedagogies. Online and on-site, each semester proposes a formative and editorial program that unfolds through Classrooms, Laboratories and public lectures, as well as a Library that hosts a growing archive of essays, conversations, resources, and methodologies developed by a network of collaborators located throughout the Americas, produced in a joint effort with affiliated universities, institutions, and communities.

"Dismantling the disparity between the appetite for developmentalist knowledge and the material frontiers of a sustainable life" is one of the aims of artist, researcher, and educator Federico Pérez Villoro. He points out "the need to reject the framework that separates educational processes from everyday life, institutionalizing knowledge as isolated disciplinary regimes."

Along this integrative spirit, artist and educator Juliana dos Santos will delve into "the legacy of educational and artistic practices and contemporary intellectual discussions of Afro-Brazilian communities," based on a question regarding learning and teaching spaces, seeking “to recognize the contributions of black artists and thinkers to Brazilian art."

This year, LA ESCUELA___'s interest in the public space will also be approached from the field of architecture, in co-curatorship with architect, writer, and editor Nicolás Valencia and scholar, designer, and urban planner Ana María Durán Calisto, who will focus on "the work of Amazonian collectives, artists and designers, within a broad program that contributes to bringing Latin America closer together."

A third research axis will bring experiences from the performing arts through the participation of journalist, scriptwriter, and performing arts curator Nayse López, and of transdisciplinary artist, teacher and founder of the Interdisciplinary Master's program in Theater and Live Arts of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Rolf Abderhalden.

Nicolás Valencia (Santiago, Chile, 1988) Architect, writer and editor. He was awarded with the Premio Promoción Joven of the Architects Association of Chile in 2022 and chosen as one of the future leaders of Architecture by MásDeco in 2018. As an architect, writer, editor, and lecturer, Nicolás Valencia focuses on the dissemination of architecture through various formats. He is Editorial & Data Manager of ArchDaily; co-founder of Redes IAAC of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia; and #XFORMAS, a Fondart 2021 winning project.

Ana María Durán Architect, urban designer, planner, and scholar, who has devoted most of her professional career to analyzing, studying and reimagining the urbanisms that decant from extractivist activities, particularly in Amazonia. She is a Design Critic in Urban Planning and Design at the Harvard GSD and a lecturer at the Yale School of Architecture and the Pratt Institute. In 2022, Durán Calisto received the Mark Cousins Theory Award for her work on extractivism and the built environment, and her interest in the principles of ancestral urban ecologies.

Federico Pérez Villoro (Guadalajara, Mexico, 1987) Artist and researcher living and working in Mexico City. Through texts, performances, and digital artifacts, Federico explores the ways in which state, corporate and institutional authority is exercised technologically. His work has been exhibited internationally and published by The Serving Library, Printed Matter, C Magazine, diSONARE, Gato Negro Ediciones, and the Walker Art Center’s The Gradient. His investigations have also been featured in journalistic outlets such as Quinto Elemento Lab, The New York Times, Aristegui Noticias, among others.

Juliana dos Santos (São Paulo, Brazil, 1987) Visual artist and educator. She holds a Master’s degree in Art/Education and is currently a PhD student in Arts at the Arts Institute of the Universidade Estadual Paulista. In her teaching practice, she is developing research on the decolonization of educational practices through anti-racist approaches. Parallel to this, her artistic practice has been focused on teaching as a guest lecturer in graduate programs in arts and mentoring in artistic training programs.

Rolf Abderhalden (Manizales, Colombia, 1965) Transdisciplinary artist, educator and researcher based in Bogotá. He is co-founder and co-director of Mapa Teatro-Laboratorio de Artistas de Bogotá, together with his sister Heidi Abderhalden. He is an arts educator and researcher; he is a professor at the Faculty of Arts of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, where he founded the Interdisciplinary Master’s program in Theater and Live Arts, being a pioneer of the concept of Live Arts in Latin America. He holds a PhD in Aesthetics, Science and Technologies of the Arts from the University of Paris 8. He has presented and exhibited his artistic work in numerous theaters, art festivals, museums, and academic venues worldwide.

Nayse López (Brasil) Journalist, playwright, and performing arts curator. Nayse has curated and organized numerous exhibitions and conferences in the fields of dance, performing arts, and cultural cooperation. She has been guest curator of the Panorama Festival since 2001, and since 2006, she became general and artistic director of the Festival and other projects of the Panorama Cultural Association. In 2021, she assumed the artistic direction of the international platform Panorama Raft, with a programming of 10 unreleased shows created to be watched online during the pandemic.