The Federal Foreign Office and LIA-Leipzig International Art Programme are pleased to announce the two artists from Colombia and Guatemala who have been selected for a three-month residency at LIA for the period August to October 2026.
ANDRÉS QUINTERO (COLOMBIA)
Andrés Quientero is rooted in Güicán, Boyacá, Colombia, and his artistic practice
intertwines historical inquiry with autoethnographic perspectives. He explores the origins and evolution of technologies, crafts, and creative languages within the
rugged context of the countryside. From this place, he cultivates a deep connection with the living beings that inhabit the land and the materialities that resonate in
harmony with this ecosystem.
Through practices of observation, listening, and touch, he investigates the diverse bodily relationships that emerge within the creative environment he inhabits. Walking is a fundamental part of his work, an embodied act through which he engages with the notion of a terrestrial journey.
This experience allows him to gather sensitive and immaterial elements that inform a series of plastic gestures, such as sculpture, video, and performance, through which he weaves narratives that blend documentary and fictional dimensions.
GERARDO CORDÓN (GUATEMALA)
Gerardo Cordón is Guatemalan, born in 1976 in Raleigh, North Carolina, to a Mexican father and a Guatemalan mother. He studied Political Science and Urban Administration in Mexico (Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México) and Communication Sciences in Guatemala. In Mexico, I was an active member of the Evaluation and Monitoring Committee on the Human Rights Program, specifically working on Migration, Street Population, the Right to Work, and Public Security.
He is a founding member of the now-dissolved Social Democratic Party of Mexico City (2007), where I advocated for marriage equality, the right to abortion, and the
decriminalisation of minimum quantities of recreational substances. He also founded the first sexual diversity office within a political party in Latin America, within the Party of the Democratic Revolution (2005). Before leaving Mexico for Texas in 2017, he directed the civil organisation “Tú y yo podemos más,” which focused on human rights issues. On a personal level, he drafted a clause on autonomous labour that was approved and incorporated into the Right to Work Law in Mexico City’s first constitution in 2016. He also maintained an active weekly presence on radio and television, contributing commentary on current social issues.
He currently dedicates himself entirely to art and lives in Cuilapa, Santa Rosa, Guatemala, where his entire body of work has been created.
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