Adriana Del Pilar García Galán: Witnessing the Biennial
Embodied Spectatorship and Independent Narratives in Bogotá
23.06.26, 6 pm
TRACES Research Station at Lutherplatz
This talk offers a reflection on the Bogotá Arts Biennial from the perspective of embodied spectatorship and independent mediation. Rather than focusing solely on institutional discourse, this session explores how the body of the spectator can act as a living archive that witnesses and reinterprets artistic actions.
Using my experience as both a participant in independent programs and a critical observer, I will discuss how large-scale exhibitions are inhabited and embodied by their publics. We will analyze the tensions between the official curatorial gaze and the sensory, often invisible, knowledge produced through the act of witnessing. This is an invitation to think about how can art exhibitions become shared spaces of resonance where the labor of mediation and the situated presence of the spectator shape the event’s meaning and memory.
Adriana Del Pilar Garcia Galan is an interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and composer with a trajectory defined by an inquiry into the body as a site of action and representation. Her work investigates the physical presence of the subject, analyzing how human gestures (silent, vocal, or performative) are captured and re-activated across sonic, graphic, and performative media. This practice explores the threshold where experience meets symbolic structure, translating the movement of the body into creative fields. Her career spans both extensive collective work and an established individual practice, currently serving as Director of the Arts Program at Universidad del Rosario. There, she develops research-creation models grounded in specific social and symbolic contexts. She is an active member of the ELIA Artistic Research Working Group (Netherlands) and the Colombian Academy of Cinematic Arts and Sciences.
Adriana Del Pilar Garcia Galan is currently a guest lecturer at the University of Kassel.
The event will be held in English.
Image: Jumping the biennial, Public space collective action as part of the mediation program of the Bogotá Biennial 2025. Activity lead by Adriana Del Pilar Garcia Galan. Photo: Cecilia Vallejos
