Independent Curatorships, Another Artistic Highlight of the BOG25 Biennial

Through a public call and curated by Elkin Rubiano, the BOG25 International Biennial of Art and City brings together the artistic exhibitions of five renowned independent curators. These exhibitions will be on display until November 9 at the Alliance Française - Downtown; the Exhibition Hall of the Arts and Design Building of the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University; Colombo Americano - Downtown; Centro Felicidad Chapinero Center; and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) in the Minuto de Dios neighborhood.
These curatorships activate new ways of seeing and inhabiting the city. In their differences, they share a common intuition: that art, when born from the intersection of the sensitive, the political, and the communal, can open thresholds of perception to imagine, amidst urban chaos, other forms of life.
In addition to these exhibitions, independent curators will lead several sessions of the International Symposium "The City, Art, and Happiness," which will take place from October 27th to 29th, from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University Auditorium.

More than 250 national and international contemporary artists from 12 countries will participate in the BOG25 International Biennial of Art and City. Independent curators are present with five exhibition proposals, selected through a public call, which comprise a polyphonic curatorial essay on Bogotá, where the urban is not a neutral background, but a territory of dispute, memory, desire, and transformation.

These Independent Curatorships draw a sensitive and plural map of the contemporary city, seen from its margins, fissures, and powers.

"From the pixelated and inherited landscapes of 'Rate My Setup,' through the liminal presences of public space in 'UFO - Unidentified Visible Objects,' to the traces of time in 'The City of Specters,' to the affective and critical dimension of the everyday in 'Transformations of a City to Be Inhabited,' and the healing gesture of 'Thresholds,' these curatorships activate new ways of seeing and inhabiting the city. In their differences, they share a common intuition: that art, when born from the intersection of the sensitive, the political, and the communal, can open thresholds of perception to imagine, amidst urban chaos, other forms of life," comments curator Elkin Rubiano. These are the exhibition projects of the Independent Curatorships of the BOG25 Biennial:

1. “UFO – Unidentified Visible Objects –”
Curated by Ana María Cifuentes: art historian with a Master's degree in Museology from the École du Louvre in Paris, and a Master's degree in Contemporary Art Curatorship from the Sorbonne in Paris. She is a professor at the Faculty of Creative Arts and director of the undergraduate program in Creative Arts at the Universidad del Rosario. Her career has combined academic activity, from teaching and directing undergraduate programs at Colombian universities, with professional activity in the Colombian cultural and creative sectors, both public and private, developing curatorial, museological, publishing, and cultural management projects. Her curatorial projects address diverse fields and languages, such as multidisciplinary contemporary creation, the history of photography, heritage, historical memory, and the city, among others.

It brings together multidisciplinary artistic works and processes that offer creative, critical, and sensitive perspectives on Bogotá's public space. Understood as a container, but also as an activator of social, political, cultural, and economic dynamics, public space becomes here a starting point and stage for reflection, creation, and intervention.

The participating artists and collectives—from different generations and backgrounds—find in this urban environment a fertile ground to explore, investigate, and reimagine the very notion of public space, as well as its complex and sometimes conflictive relationship with the art that inhabits or emerges from it.

Alliance Française - Downtown (Cra. 3 #18-45), until November 8.
Hours: Monday to Friday: 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. / Saturday: 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Free admission.

2. “Healing Thresholds. Questions about Mental Health, Disability, and Spirituality”
Curated by Christian Snyder Moreno Martín: a graduate in Plastic and Visual Arts from the National University of Colombia (2014) and a Master's in Sculpture from the Royal College of Arts (2021), thanks to the Young Talents Program of the Banco de la República. He has undertaken curatorial projects such as Healing Thresholds (Bogotá Art Biennial, 2025) and co-curated Imagen Regional 10 (2024-25). He participated in the ICI Curatorial Intensive (2015). His work explores healing and spirituality, linking art, education, and the environment. It is part of the Banco de la República Collection.
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