Isabella Celis Campos (1996) is a Colombian visual artist and researcher with studies in sustainability, decolonial thought and leadership.
Her practice stands at the intersection between political ecology, more-than-human and interspecies knowledges and situated practice where she proposes wide reflections and dialogues on what it means to live and coexist multidimensionally in intricate and interdependent natural, spiritual, cultural and geopolitical (eco)systems. Her work is nourished by a fascination with biocultural systems in equilibrium, the question of technodiversity and in-depth research that allow her to weave together ideas and feelings to reinvent the world as resistance to the totalizing and extractivist system.
Isabella is currently working on the opening of the frontier in the Colombian Amazon, its relationship with satellite technologies and the solutions that come from interweaving cosmologies and cosmogonies of the TCC (Chiribiquete Cultural Tradition) with Western knowledge.
Likewise, she carries out research funded by the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum on the Quipus, an ancestral textile technology to store information used by different Andean cultures.
Her work has been exhibited in various international and national events such as the Encuentro de Imagen at the Museum of Contemporary art Querétaro, the Biennial of Art & Decoloniality at Museo Colonial, The 46thNational Salon of Artists, the XV National Young Art Salon at Galería Santa Fe, Mujer, Memoria y espacio at ARTBO Salas (Colombia’s International Art Fair), Actos inmanentes at the 3rd International Meeting of Research & Creation from REDLIC (Latin American Creation & Research Network), Art-queología at Casa Mamífera, among others.
Isabella has also received several grants and incentives, among them are the Leaky Archive research fellowship from the German Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, the XV National Young Art Salon and the fellowship for Residencias en Bloque, both granted by Idartes – the District Institute of the Arts, the grant for the residency Habitando la anarquía, honoris causa, the creation grant awarded by Uniandinos, the creation grant from the Center for Research and Creation of the Universidad de los Andes, among others.
Isabella is founder and director of Tura, a studio of exploration and research around natural dyeing from experimental ethnobotany and situated practice. She is also an educator, promotes access to socio-environmental information and is interested in producing experiential knowledge. She designs, manages and develops artistic pedagogical processes focused on environmental education. She is the creator of the Socio-environmental Resources Hub, a free access platform for the dissemination and mobilization of socio-environmental issues in the glocal context that interconnects with her research and artistic work.
