Biography
In her work, Claudia Aravena Abughosh often deals with questions of identity, displacements and memory through a unique perspective. She seemingly cuts out images and moves them to new subjective contexts, and in doing so creates a dialogue between her experiences, the images she produces and contemporary socio-political issues.
In 2003, she drew on her Palestinian family background to create the Palestine Project, a series focusing on the representations of borders and the imagery they engender.
She has partnered on several occasions with Guillermo Cifuentes, a key interlocutor throughout her career.
Her work has been exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago (2019); Proyector: Madrid Video Art Festival (2017); Biennial of the Moving Image, UNTREF Tres de Febrero National University and CCSM, San Martin Cultural Center, Buenos Aires (2012); 1st Triennial of Chile Museum of Contemporary Art of Santiago, (2009); 10th Havana Biennial (2009); Itaú Cultural, Sao Paulo (2008); Merz Foundation, Torino (2008); Akademie der Künste Berlin (2008); Videobrasil: International Electronic Art Festival, Sao Paulo (2007);; and PUSAN: International Contemporary Art Festival, South Korea (2001), among others.
Aravena Abughosh has received numerous awards, including the Golden Cube Prize, Kassel Documentary (2003); Festival Award, Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, Germany (2002); Best Experimental Short Film Award, Santiago Short Film Festival (2001); and Laser d'Or prize, AIVAC, Locarno (2001) and the Bourses de L'Unesco et du Conseil de L'Europe Prize, XIV International Festival de la Video et des Art Électrinoques, Locarno (1993).
Her works can be found in the collections of Video Forum NBK, Berlin; La Caixa Forum, Barcelona; Visual Arts Collection, CNCA, Santiago; and Americas without Borders Collection at the Video Data Bank, Chicago.
Aravena Abughosh received a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design (1988) and Audiovisual Communication (1992) as well as a master’s degree in Cultural Studies (2013) from Universidad de Artes y Ciencias Sociales Arcis, Santiago.
She was born in 1968 in Santiago, where she continues to live and work.
SAF participation:
Genealogies in the Middle East and Latin America (2021)
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Genealogies in the Middle East and Latin America
Sharjah Art Foundation presents a series of online film screenings jointly organised with Anna Goetz, who initiated this collaborative project featuring 21 artists and collectives from the Middle East and Latin America working in film and video.
