Sebastiana (Seba) Calfuqueo (she/they, Santiago de Chile, 1991) is a Mapuche trans artist and curator at Espacio218, Santiago de Chile.
She is a member of the Mapuche collective Rangiñtulewfü and of Revista Yene.
Through her work, Calfuqueo draws on her cultural heritage and lived experience as a starting point to propose a critical reflection on the social, cultural, and political dynamics that shape the Mapuche subject within contemporary Chilean and Latin American society. Her artistic practice unfolds through performance, installation, ceramics, and video, in order to examine both the similarities and the frictions between Indigenous worldviews and Western thought, as well as the stereotypes that emerge from these intersections. At the same time, her work confronts colonial impositions through research and a thoughtful use of visual techniques and strategies. Calfuqueo’s practice also engages with themes such as feminism, gender studies, and environmental rights, from a First Nations perspective grounded in embodied knowledge.
In relation to environmental rights, Calfuqueo seeks to contribute a contemporary reflection on the relationships between humans and what we understand as nature, creating a space for rupture where these two concepts can be understood as coexisting. Her work aims to dismantle the anthropocentric view of landscape as something humans inhabit or exploit, encouraging viewers to rethink the imposed relationships we construct with nature.
Her work is part of the collections of the TATE Modern (United Kingdom), Centre Pompidou (France), Denver Art Museum (USA), Museo MALBA (Argentina), Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Spain), KADIST Collection (France), Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Rio Grande do Sul – MAC RS (Brazil), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Chile), and MAC (Chile).
Calfuqueo has participated as an invited artist in the Venice Biennale (2024), the Whitney Biennial (2024), the 34th Bienal de São Paulo (2021), the 12th Bienal de Mercosur (2020), and the 22nd Bienal Paiz (2020).
She has received awards from the FAVA Foundation (2018), Eyebeam’s Fractal Fellowships Program (2020), Fundación Ama Amoedo’s FAARA (2023), and the Cuervo Prize at Zona Maco (2024).
STATEMENT
My artistic practice, as a Mapuche and trans subject, is characterized by questioning the colonial order binary and its consequences in the indigenous societies as well as in the global ones. Similarly, I am interested in addressing, on one hand, the study of categories such as race, gender, social class, and, on the other, those topics that evince territorial and environmental conflicts through the revision of their political, social and cultural implications.
My work is executed by means of installation, ceramic, drawing, photograph, performance and video, with the aim of exploring the cultural similarities and differences as well as the stereotypes produced in the cross between indigenous and western ways of thinking.
COLlABORAtORS
MARIAIRIS FLORES
(Marchigüe, 1990) holds a BA and MA in Art Theory and History from the Universidad de Chile. She is currently conducting a FONDART-funded research project titled Bajo el signo mujer, focused on exhibitions of Chilean women artists between 1973 and 1991, and collaborates with Artishock magazine. She has worked as coordinator at Galería BECH and as producer for Punto Ciego, a project by Paz Errázuriz and Jorge Díaz. As a researcher, she has participated in the web-based project on Carlos Leppe; in the book and video Arte y política 2005–2015 (fragmentos); and in Mezza: Archivo liberado.
DIEGO ARGOTE
(Pudahuel, 1991) is a photographer trained at the Instituto Profesional de Arte y Comunicación Arcos. Their work focuses on authorial photography and the documentation of artworks. They currently teach at Instituto Profesional Arcos (Peñalolén) and at the SernamEG 4-to-7 program at Colegio Albert Einstein (Pudahuel). They have exhibited both individually and collectively in various art galleries. Their practice also involves experimentation with and a deepening of dissident art actions. In addition to personal and collective writing around the image, their work includes texts by Zaida González Ríos, Sebastián Calfuqueo, Paz Errázuriz, among other visual artists.
JORGE PÉREZ
(Santiago, 1991) has a degree in English-Spanish Translation and Interpretation from the Universidad de Playa Ancha. He has worked in the edition and translation of works by different contemporary artists such as Diego Argote, Juvenal Barría and Seba Calfuqueo, specializing in the translation of contemporary art and curatorial texts. Among the publications in which he has collaborated are Donde no habito (2018), by Seba Calfuqueo and Mariairis Flores, Santiago de Chile, Ka Mollfün (2018), by Seba Calfuqueo, Editorial Amistad, Santiago de Chile, Champurria (2018), by Seba Calfuqueo, FicWallmapu, Temuco, Chile. As well as in the elaboration, edition and translation of the catalog of the artist Seba Calfuqueo and its respective dossier.