KARLA HERENCIA: FEELTHINKING EXPERIMENTAL OBSERVATORY

Presentation of Karla Herencia at the conclusion of her residency in Bulegoa z/b. Her proposal Feelthinking experimental observatory was selected in the residency call of the Centro Cultural España (CCE – Cultural Center of Spain) in Costa Rica. The residency program has been managed in collaboration with the CCE in the framework of its Experimentation in Creative Processes program, in a two-way relationship by which an artist from the Basque Country will carry out a residency in San José, Costa Rica in 2024.

FEELTHINKING EXPERIMENTAL OBSERVATORY
Karla Herencia delves into issues related to technology, different aspects of corporality and the territory, exploring images that navigate from the everyday to the disturbing. Her project titled Feelthinking experimental observatory arises from her interest in experimenting with the expansive possibilities of art and the pictorial. Observing and rethinking the process of situating oneself in a territory, dialoguing on collaboration to overcome structural challenges and gaps, defying a history that has perpetuated patriarchal visions and narratives of explorers and travelling painters.

The Feelthinking experimental observatory is centred on the experiences and encounters that arise on moving to, and situating oneself in, a territory. Applying different artistic and feminist focuses that evaluate the complexity of experiences, in which emotions, thoughts, data, dialogues and intuitions intervene.

The Feelthinking experimental observatory proposes encounters designed reflexively for the exchange of knowledge, considering the intersections and connections between art and everyday life. The project culminates in the artistic residency in Bulegoa z/b with a presentation of the constellation of experiences – a type of collage in conceptual terms – of approaches to, and memories of, meetings with residents of the area, artists and cultural agents. Recognising the links between the setting and the people, contributing in this way to enriching cultural dialogue.

Karla Herencia (Costa Rica-Perú, 1985), interdisciplinary artist. Graduate in Art and Visual Communication; with training in Visual Arts, Scenic Arts and Spatial Design at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. She is a researcher in questions of innovation, creativity, art education, active apprenticeship and audio-visual archives; an academic at the Centro de Investigación Docencia y Extensión Artística and coordinator of the Programa Investigación, Arte y Transmedia and of the project El Bosque: Hábitat de Innovación at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. She worked on the consolidation of the Archivo del Centro de Estudio y Documentación de la Fundación TEOR/éTica. She has shown her work in different museums, including: Museo de Arte Costarricense; Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo de Costa Rica; TEOR/éTica; Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno Carlos Mérida (Guatemala); Centro León de Santiago de los Caballeros (República Dominican Republic). Her work was selected for the Tijuana Triennial: Pictoric International Art in Mexico. Her work is included in the publication of Central American art Entre Siglos: Arte Contemporáneo de Centroamérica y Panamá, published by the Fundación Rozas Botrán. Founder and agitator of the feminist initiative of contemporary Central American painting ¡QUEREMOS PINTAR!; co-founder of the Casa de Mujeres Artistas (Casa MA) and curator of its first two shows Casa MA I Edición and Nuestros ojos no pueden parar de parpadear.