Bio
Alexandra Gelis is a Colombian-Venezuelan artist, educator and researcher living between Canada, Panama and Colombia. Her practice is research-based, process-oriented and multi-disciplinary including film, photography, drawing, and media installation with custom-built interactive electronics and sound. Her projects incorporate personal field research as a tool to investigate the ecologies of various landscapes by examining the traces left by various socio-political interventions. From her plant-based research-creation: she explores, documents and re-creates ecologies that take shape between plants and people, and between plants and their multi-species interrelationships. The idea of plants as political allies and as actors is central to her concept of "Migrated Plants".
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Gelis has exhibited in film festivals and exhibitions internationally in the Americas, Europe and Africa. The Walker Art Center; Oberhausen Short Film Festival; Bienal del Sur; Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur; Images Festival Toronto; ArtworxTO. Toronto; Oboro, Montreal; Museum of London (CA); YYZ Gallery; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Montevideo; Recoleta Cultural Center, Buenos Aires; LABOCINE; Kuala Lumpur Experimental Film; Alucine latin media festival; Vancouver Latin Film Festival; Dresdner schmalfilmtage; Pleasure Dome; Museo la Tertulia; Espacios Revelados / Changing Places; The Paseo Project New Mexico; and others.
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She has given talks at Kassel and Documenta Institute, Germany; Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City; University of Zurich; and many arts and food sovereignty conferences.
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Alexandra has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. She has curated several shows across Canada and South America the last few years.