This program offers emerging thinkers and researchers from diverse disciplines the opportunity to engage with the Bogota Museum of Modern Art, fostering research, dialogue, and co-creation. Currently, four artists, curators, and independent researchers are developing their research-creation projects.
This year, the following residencies will be offered: Digital, Research, and Curatorial.
Digital Residencies
The Digital Residency is aimed at individuals interested in exploring aspects related to digital tools and their application in museums, the digitization of collections and archives, the study of the MAMBO Collection, and the digital practices associated with it. The goal of this residency is to promote research-creation projects based on the Museum’s content, including but not limited to digital artistic and educational responses to the collection, the development of interactive applications, the creation of virtual tours, archival digitization, multimedia content production, and any other initiatives that utilise digital resources.
For this inaugural edition, the jury selected two finalists due to the high quality of submissions:
- Sebastián Mira (Colombia) with his project “pixel quadrants.”
- Digital Visual Studies (DVS) (Switzerland) with their project “Bogotá (Re)imagined: Explorations with AI and the Digital Collection of MAMBO.”
“pixel quadrants” by Sebastián Mira
This project presents a selection of works from the MAMBO collection, focusing on the theme of landscaping and our interaction with the world.
Mira will create a gamified online experience featuring digital recreations of artworks from the Museum’s collection, particularly from the “Transformers” and “Proposal to View the Landscape” series by Rodrigo Callejas. The project aims to explore virtual landscaping and hypermateriality, reflecting on the role of web and video games as exhibition formats. “Pixel Quadrants” will reinterpret the genre of “landscape” through interactive digital interfaces, making cultural content accessible to broader audiences.
Sebastián Mira is an artist and curator from Colombia, known for his exploration of landscape in virtual realms and the relationship between physical and digital spaces. His work has been showcased internationally, including in Amsterdam, Bogotá, and New York. He co-directs VIRREINA and MSD, spaces dedicated to contemporary land art practices and digital experiences.
“Bogotá (Re)imagined: Explorations with AI and the MAMBO Digital Collection” by Digital Visual Studies (DVS)
This project will reimagine Bogotá through the MAMBO digital collection using artificial intelligence. AI models will analyse artworks to extract visual and textual features, integrating them with the city. The aim is to offer new artistic perspectives on the MAMBO Collection and Bogotá, while addressing ethical and cultural issues related to AI technology in curation.
Digital Visual Studies (DVS) is a multidisciplinary lab based in Switzerland, affiliated with the Max Planck Society and the University of Zurich. The team includes:
- Ana María Zapata: Art historian and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for Digital Art History.
- Darío Negueruela del Castillo: Scientific Coordinator with expertise in AI models for cultural research.
- Ludovica Schaerf and Pepe Ballesteros: Doctoral students specialising in computer science and digital humanities.
- Lacopo Neri: Architect skilled in AI research platforms.
- Andrea Alfarano: Engineer focusing on AI models and deep learning.
- Tristan Weddigen: Director of the Max Planck Institute for Art History – Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome.
Curatorial Residency
The Curatorial Residency is designed for graduate students, recent graduates, or emerging scholars interested in curatorial practices and museum studies. This residency offers an opportunity to enhance skills through hands-on experience with MAMBO’s Curatorial Department, focusing on digital practices.
The recipient of the inaugural Curatorial Residency is Federico Reyes.
Federico Reyes (Colombia) is an artist, editorial designer, and he holds a master’s degree in Cultural Studies. He has worked as an advisor on research-creation processes for the 46th National Salon of Artists, the Women, Arts, and Care Program, and various music programs at the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Knowledge in Colombia. He has also been a production assistant and designer for Espacio Odeón, a production and programming assistant for Fundación Ambulante Colombia, and an editorial design consultant for the IOM.
His interest in the poetic dimensions of virtual relationality and internet culture has allowed him to explore, through his artistic practice, diverse media such as textual art, expanded graphics, digital and analog printing, poetic computation, digital craft, net art, and electronic art. He has participated in group exhibitions in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Miami, and New York.
Federico has been concurrently working on two processes. On one hand, he has supported the curatorial research for the third cycle of exhibitions by gathering information on a series of artworks from the Museum’s collection, and creating connections between these artworks — and their authors and trajectories — and the curatorial categories designed by the MAMBO curatorial team. On the other hand, he has focused on designing a web-based curatorial/performance project that will interact with the third exhibition cycle by exploring various phenomena of translatability and untranslatability in the arts and the internet.
Researcher-in-Residence
The Researcher in Residence programme offers researchers the opportunity to conduct in-depth investigations related to the MAMBO Collection, archive, and exhibition programme. Using digital tools to access and engage with the collection, participants may explore interdisciplinary connections, historical contexts, or thematic analyses, contributing to the scholarly discourse surrounding the museum’s holdings. Researchers are encouraged to utilise the digitised artworks at MAMBO and conduct research around them.
The recipient of the inaugural Researcher in Residence award is Júlia Farràs (Spain) for her project “What Feeds Us? From Hearts to Stomachs in the MAMBO Collection.”
“What Feeds Us? From Hearts to Stomachs in the MAMBO Collection” examines the intersection of hunger and love—essential forces that nourish both body and spirit. This project invites exploration of works within the MAMBO Collection that address themes of hunger, food, and dining. It aims to understand these elements not just as physical necessities but as deeply intertwined with culture, memory, and identity, questioning their emotional and physical connections.
Using digital tools, the project will develop an interdisciplinary cookbook linking selected artworks with culinary recipes. This unique approach aims to create a synesthetic experience where art and gastronomy intersect, allowing participants to “taste” the art. The initiative seeks to offer a novel way of experiencing the MAMBO Collection, viewing art as a form of sustenance as vital as food.
Júlia Farràs Marginedas (Spain) works across Humanities, Anthropology, and cultural management. She holds an honours degree in Humanities from Pompeu Fabra University and a master’s degree in Anthropology and Ethnography from the University of Barcelona, where she is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Society and Culture.
Dividing her time between Barcelona and Colombia, Júlia has collaborated on research and cultural management projects with various organisations, including the Spanish Embassy in Colombia, the Truth Commission, Imaginart Gallery, Rebobinart, and the Gladys Palmera Foundation. Specialising in creating inclusive curatorial narratives through participatory methodologies, she currently works at the Spanish Embassy in Colombia and is developing independent curatorial projects.