Sandra Miranda Pattin
THE ARTIST
I primarily work in installation and performance, guided by the conviction that each project demands its own unique aesthetic articulation. For this reason, the core of my creative process begins with an active dialogue with the surroundings and context. My research is deeply rooted in the body as a site of transformation—a battleground where cultural impositions collide with personal beliefs. The body, for me, is where the undefined takes shape, emerging from the abstract realm of the mind to manifest in tangible form.
I carefully observe how the body responds to daily life and the shifting states of mind shaped by our environment. I am particularly drawn to its duality as both victim and cause of pain, a precarious equilibrium that reveals the interstitial space where my exploration resides. It is only when a thought passes through the body that it becomes real; in the mind, it remains susceptible to distortion. My artistic practice becomes a process of osmosis, a spontaneous passage through a membrane, from thought in all its abstraction to concrete form, restoring the possibility of re-signifying identity
Our bodies and their conditions are shaped by the cultural, social, and ideological frameworks that surround us, making the body itself the most honest political statement.
In other words, I appropriate the principle of ritual, this intrinsic human need to ritualize, as it enables us to root our connections, to mark life’s transitions, and to give truth—and physicality—to change, a continuous testimony of our existence.
As Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest species that survive, but the ones that adapt best.”
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Born and raised in Colombia, I studied Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, I have exhibited extensively in Europe, China and South America with works ranging from perforation drawings to installations and, finally, performance, which has been my main area of research. I have participated in numerous individual and group exhibitions in museums, galleries, biennials and festivals. Host of the podcast Nuevas Curadurias (available in spotify) I have worked with curators such as Juan Xu with whom I was part of the feminist collective Bald Girls, as well as other curators like Marco Scotini, John Spike, Monika Bravo and Paco Barragan. I have written scripts for artistic documentaries, directed the production of multimedia, sound and performance projects. Winner of first prize in photography at the Mantua Chamber of Commerce and the nomination for the Sara Modiano Award and the COCA Art Prize. My works are part of public collections such as: Mantua Chamber of Commerce, Italy, Diart Contemporary Art Foundation, Sicily, Italy, Lisbon Museum in Barcelona, Spain, Colombian American Center, Bogota, Colombia, among others. I’m currently curator of Chiasso Perduto in Florence www.chiassoperduto.com advisor for ShengxinyuArt in China, director of Artists on the Map platform.
Former Head of International Projects Florence Biennale, where I curated the Career award for artists like Marina Abramovic, Shu Yong, Christo and Jeanne Claude among others. I have also worked as Artistic Consultant at the Zhengmou Art Museum, Qingdao, China, at Fabbrica Progetto, Gambettola and BB Sardinia project. I also co-founded ArtSEEN Journal and web TV channel Sillon 8. I’m currently living between Colombia and Italy.
THE CURATOR
I began to think about curating when I was still studying visual arts. I perceived a special connection between works, spaces, and people that I felt needed to be explored. Over time, being an artist and being a curator became two trains that feed each other, sharing the same fuel even though they travel through different landscapes. My experience that has been though biennials, museums, from galleries to alternative spaces, in cultural contexts as China, South America and Europe, has shown me that an artist’s evolution is born from asking new questions, even uncomfortable ones and having interlocutors who accompany that process.
Curating, for me, is listening and accompanying. Part of my work involves questioning the idea that curatorship exists only within the "white cube". This format has homogenized the exhibition experience and limited the relationship between artwork, artist, audience, and territory. When everything fits into the same mold, the possibility for the work to dialogue with its context is lost, and the artist is prevented from exploring tensions, questions, or connections beyond the neutrality of the exhibition space.
In contrast, I advocate for a curating process that begins long before the exhibition. The curator is, above all, an attentive reader of the artist’s thinking, even in inconclusive phases, capable of asking questions, recognizing potential, and generating new associations. This requires a space of listening, vulnerability, and horizontality, where the artwork and artistic thought regain their centrality, and where the relationship between curator and artist does not become a hierarchy but a dialogue.
That is why I have developed a method of accompaniment that includes meetings dedicated to clarifying the research, strengthening the aesthetic and conceptual coherence, reviewing the writing of the artist statement, and analyzing gaps, visibility, projection, and strategies. Each process is unique and can take place within a site-specific project, as happens in my residency Chiasso Perduto in Florence or completely independent of the space, as a fundamental preliminary phase. Ultimately what I am trying to do is to be an active listener and provide a space for evolution in the artistic critical thinking and doing.
In this link you can review all the options I propose for working together https://www.sandramiranda.com/curatorialfollowup