Laura Anderson Barbata

Born in Mexico City, Laura Anderson Barbata is a transdisciplinary artist currently based in Brooklyn and Mexico City. Since 1992 she has worked primarily in the social realm and has initiated projects in the Venezuelan Amazon, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Norway, and the United States. Among them is her ongoing project, The Repatriation of Julia Pastrana, begun in 2005, which resulted in the removal of Pastrana’s body from the Schreiner Collection in Oslo and its successful repatriation and burial in Sinaloa, Mexico, Pastrana’s birth state. The project continues with upcoming publications, zines, exhibitions, and performances.

Barbata is also known for her project Transcommunality (2001–ongoing), working with stilt walkers, artists, and artisans from Mexico, New York, and the Caribbean. This project has been presented at various museums, schools, and other venues as exhibitions and ¨Interventions¨, among them the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; BRIC Arts | Media House, Brooklyn; Rutgers University; United Nations Plaza, New York; University of Wisconsin, Madison; Museo Textil de Oaxaca, México; Museo de la Ciudad de México; MUCA Roma, UNAM, Mexico City; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and Newcomb Art Museum, New Orleans.

Her work is in various private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; el Museo de Arte Moderno, México D.F.; Landesbank Baden-Württemberg Gallery, Stuttgart, Germany; Fundación Cisneros; Museo Carrillo Gil, México; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Museum of Latin American Art MOLAA, Long Beach; USC Fisher Museum of Art; Museo de Arte de Lima; Museo Jaureguía, Navarra, Spain, and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, among others.

Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Sculpture Today (Phaidon Press), Kunstforum Germany, ARTnews, Art in America, ArtNexus, and 160 Años de Fotografía en México (INBA).

Barbata is a recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Artist in Residence, 2019; the Anonymous Was a Woman 2016 Award; Defense of Human Rights Award 2017, from the Instituto de Administración Pública de Tabasco, México; an Honorary Fellow of LACIS (the Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Program), University of Wisconsin, Madison; and a Fellow of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary TBA21 Academy; Miembro del Sistema Nacional de Creadores, México (2014-2017) and professor at the Escuela Nacional de Escultura, Pintura y Grabado La Esmeralda of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes from 2010 until 2015.

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