Cristobal Cea S.
Cristobal Cea (1981) is a Chilean artist and educator whose work focuses on the relation between digital media, history and memory: through his multidisciplinary practice, he uses digital media and archives as a way to re-examine forgotten histories, in an intent to dismantle the persistence of the mistakes of the past in the present.
Works such as Hawker Haunted, Fuente de Juventud or Seguidores del Diluvio critically address issues such as the persistence of fascist ideology in contemporary Chile, the inconsistencies of mixing democracy with neoliberal policies, and the decolonization of public space using 3D-Scanning as a way of imagining alternative futures.
His work has been exhibited internationally in venues including Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Microscope Gallery, Ars Electronica, National Museum of Fine Arts (Chile), Lund Konsthal, Sala Alcalá, and the Museum of Fine Arts of Chile. He has also been a resident artist at MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Kohler Arts/Industry Program, and received recognitions such as the Fulbright Fellowship, Goethe Institut 18O Grant, MAVI Emerging Art Award, UC Artistic Research Grant, and RISD Bridge Academic Research Grant.
I work with different mediums: from 3D animation to oil painting. Probably because I don’t believe in disciplinary boundaries, and I am particularly skeptic in regard to hierarchies of knowledge: artmaking is a materially and conceptually diverse practice, and navigating the commons between digital and analogue practices is something that I enjoy immensely.
Perhaps that is why my work is rooted within the historical ambiguities and fluid boundaries that characterize my practice, personal story and the geographical history that surrounds us: abundant in myths, unspoken grievances and invisible habits that seem really hard to break.
I think we might be haunted.
My art is an intent on dispelling these occult habits: unwinding media bias and ritual violence in Glorias, animating the ever-present specter of fascism in Hawker Haunted, or conjuring the contradictions of democratic transition through the voice of a transitional human.
Currently working on Naufragos and America Reimaginada: congresses of undead, broken and unspoken characters from American History -human and nonhuman- that hopefully might make some sense out of our condition.