Artist talk: Camila Ospina Gaitán
The St Andrews Centre for Contemporary Art is hosting this talk by Colombian artist Camila Ospina-Gaitán.
Camila will discuss her interdisciplinary practice spanning sculpture, installation and photography, through a body of work that navigates colonial histories, femininity and systems of representation. Drawing from her recent projects and exhibitions, she will explore how her work examines the sexualisation and objectification of female bodies in relation to historical structures of power, control and visual representation.
The talk will focus particularly on her recent research into colonial histories and extractivism, presented through installations that connect the exploitation of land, natural resources and bodies between Colombia, her home country and the UK. Through works such as Unconquered Natures: Tropicalism in Scotland, she investigates the legacy of orchid collecting during colonial expansion, tracing how practices of possession, classification and extraction continue to shape contemporary cultural narratives. Combining historical references, fiction and material experimentation, her installations create immersive environments that question the entanglement of beauty, violence, care and domination.
Rather than focusing on a chronological overview of her trajectory, Camila will briefly introduce the experiences and questions that led her towards her current lines of research. The talk will offer insight into her creative process, material experimentation, and the development of specific works, opening a conversation around colonial memory, extractivism and the historical representation of the female body.
Camila graduated with merit from the Contemporary Art Practice MFA at Edinburgh University. She studied Visual Arts at Javeriana University in Bogotá and, in 2016, she was awarded the Lancaster Access Programme (LAP) scholarship from the Japanese government, which allowed her to study in Nagoya at Nanzan University and in Tokyo at Sophia University. She has exhibited in various cities, including Tokyo, Bogotá, Miami and Edinburgh.
All are welcome and no booking is required.