Paula Hurtado Otero: Muttering incantations

Bremen Studio Grant 2022
4 December 2022 – 15 January 2023

In her multimedia installations, Paula Hurtado Otero explores forms of storytelling and questions narratives shaped by colonization. Her artistic practice is based on long-term research, collaborations and travels. During her one-year studio grant at Künstlerhaus Bremen, Hurtado Otero investigated vessels as potential archives and carriers of invisible histories. In her final presentation, titled Muttering Incantations, the artist combines video, sound, text, and objects to create an installation that suggests a story of bodies within the interplay of the five elements earth, water, fire, air and space. Hurtado Otero is interested in the community-building and unifying element of narratives and the potential of fiction to draw an alternative, multi-perspectival reality. 

Paula Hurtado Otero (b. 1988 in Colombia), has lived and worked in Bremen since 2011. She studied fine arts at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen and graduated in 2019 as a master student with Natascha Sadr Haghighian. In 2014, she received a scholarship from the DAAD and in 2016 the Heinz A. Bockmeyer travel scholarship. She participated in projects in Bremen, Berlin, Mainz and Bogota.

The Bremen Studio Grant 2022

Every year from January 1 to December 31, the Senator for Culture awards a twelve-month studio grant, including a monthly financial allowance for the realization of artistic work, to a visual artist living and working in Bremen. The aim of the grant is to support young artists in their entry into professional life and in networking in the art world, and to help establish their artistic work locally. The Künstlerhaus Bremen provides a studio workspace, enables the exchange with experienced colleagues and an insight into the practice of an internationally networked exhibition space. The grant receivers are supervised by the artistic director of the Künstlerhaus and other external curators. The grant ends with a small presentation of the work and an artist talk at the Künstlerhaus Bremen.

ACCOMPANYING PROGRAM 

Wednesday, 7 December 2022, 7 pm
Artist talk with Paula Hurtado Otero - moderated by Nadja Quante (curator)

With the kind support of