Daniela Ortiz

During her residency in Matadero Madrid, Daniela Ortiz will research from a de-colonial and anti-racist perspective the Casta Paintings held by the Museo de América in Madrid and the city's Museo de Antropología. The Casta Paintings were made in colonial territories during the 18th century and served as a tool to classify, explain and impose the racial identities of the colonial order and its corresponding social class within a policy of whitening and structural racism. The project will involve making a new series of Casta Paintings, but in this case with an analysis of whiteness in Spanish and European society.

Daniela Ortiz (Cusco, Peru, 1985) lives and works in Barcelona. Through her work Daniela aims to generate visual narratives where the concepts of nationality, racialisation, social class and gender are critically understood in order to analyse colonial, capitalist and patriarchal power. Her recent projects and research address the European migration control system, its link to colonialism and the legal mechanisms created by European institutions to exercise violence against migrant and racialised populations. At the same time, she has undertaken several projects on the Peruvian upper class and its exploitative relationship with domestic workers. Recently her artistic work has again focussed on visual and manual aspects with works in ceramics, collage, drawing and formats such as children's books with the aim of moving away from Eurocentric conceptual aesthetics.

In addition to her artistic work, she is the mother of a one-year-old wawa, gives talks, runs workshops, and participates in various discussions and struggles against the European migration control system and institutional racism.

Organiza: CRA, Matadero Madrid y AECID