felipe rivas san martín

Felipe Rivas San Martín (Valdivia, 1982). Transdisciplinary artist, essayist and Chilean sexual dissident activist. PhD from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV). He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His works are part of public and private collections such as the Reina Sofía Museum (Spain); 21C Museum (USA); MUNTREF (Argentina); Collection of the Ministry of Culture of Chile; Museum of Contemporary Art MAC of Chile, Salvador Allende Museum of Solidarity, among others. He is co-founder of the University Collective of Sexual Dissidence, CUDS (2002-2019), a Latin American group of activism, artistic experimentation and critical reflection. He is the author of the book “Internet, mon amour: queer/cuir infections between the digital and the material” (Écfrasis ediciones, 2019) and co-author (with Jaime San Martín) of the experimental science fiction book “Sagrada Biblia Artificial” (ESM, 2023). The monographs “Estatutos de la disidencia” (2020) and “Un Archivo inexistente” (2024) have been published on his work.

Statement:

My work is developed from material and temporal contrasts that build queer relationships between technologies, archives and memories with a perspective located from the south. I am interested in provoking tensions that are expressed mainly through the synthesis between old and new media, as occurs in projects in which I re-materialize websites, QR codes or algorithmic images as oil paintings on canvas or other supports. Influenced by sex-dissident criticism and activism, I understand queer as an expanded category that allows for the activation of strange and non-linear temporalities, challenging dominant historical narratives. Through my practice, I not only seek to make marginal archives and memories visible, but also to unravel how technology operates as a device of power that transforms the ways in which we imagine and construct the past, present and future.