- email jcardenas@massart.edu
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education
- PhD in Latin American Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 2023
- Masters in Hispanic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 2019
- Masters in Fine Art, University of Delaware, 2017
- Bachelor in Fine Art, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, 2009
Juan-Pablo Cárdenas
I was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, and immigrated to Boston in 1998. In 2009, I graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) with a BFA in ceramics. After graduating, I began teaching art and art history at Colegio los Nogales in Bogotá. In 2012, I taught the International Baccalaureate program of the United World College Costa Rica, in Santa Ana, Costa Rica. In 2017, I received a Master’s in Fine Arts from the University of Delaware. In 2019, I received a Master’s in Hispanic Studies and in 2023, a PhD in Latin American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. My research explores the resonance between Amerindian cosmologies and Western Ecology and Ecocritical theory, especially those concerning non-human lifeforms and natural phenomena. I study the contact zones of Latin American cultures at large through their material and immaterial cultures. My research is multidisciplinary, covering the visual arts, literature, music, and film vis-à-vis Ecocritical, Postcolonial, and Queer theories. My academic research informs my studio practice, where I use installation as a medium to explore our relationship to biofacts as cosmological tools. I have exhibited work in Colombia, Cuba, Germany, Costa Rica, and the United States. In 2020, I helped co-found the Andean-Amazonian Reading Group, a study group that workshops theories from these regions rather than theories about them. As Assistant Professor in the History of Art Department at MassArt, I am part of the team that teaches the introductory course in History of Art to Freshmen, and courses in Indigenous Arts of Abya-Yala/Turtle Island, Latin American & Latinx History of Art, and Indigenous and Latin American Cinema.
