Dora Garcia

Dora García is an artist, teacher and researcher who lives and works in Oslo. She has been part of the faculty of PEI Macba Barcelona (2015-2020) and has been a guest teacher in numerous educational institutions such as ENSBA Lyon, HEAD Geneva, and Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, France.

Dora García sculpts and arranges knowledge as a material in its own right. Using extensive documentary research, she delves into complex topics such as the history of the irrational, subconscious mind, and forges links with the great names in literature – including Walser, Artaud and Joyce. The oeuvre of Dora García folds up into writing, film, installation, and performance, as is centered around stories which she organizes and stages, conjuring situations designed to engage the visitor and trigger unique, introspective experiences. The result of this multidisciplinary atlas is a highly conceptual and metaphorical discourse that addresses issues like the artistic dimension of fiction, marginality as a form of resistance, or the symbolic logics that condition our relationship with cultural spaces and products.
As an artist, Dora García has participated in numerous international art exhibitions, including Münster Sculpture Projects (2007), Venice Biennial (2011, 2013, 2015), Sydney Biennial (2008) São Paulo Biennial (2010), dOCUMENTA 13 (2012) Gwangju Biennial (2016), osloBiennalen, Art Encounters Timisoara (Romania), and AICHI Triennale, Japan (2019). In 2021 she developed projects in Fotogalleriet Oslo, Netwerk Aalst (B) and the festival Colomboscope, Sri Lanka.

What I am working on now / current interests

García's work is largely performative and deals with issues related to community and individuality in contemporary society, exploring the political potential of marginal positions, paying homage to eccentric characters and antiheroes. These eccentric characters have often been the center of her film projects, such as The Deviant Majority (2010), The Joycean Society (2013) and Segunda Vez (2018).
She has produced, as editor, a large number of publications, among the most recent are: Love with Obstacles (K.Verlag, 2020), On Reconciliation (K.Verlag, 2018), and Segunda Vez (Torpedo Books, 2018). She is currently working on a large research project (2018-2022) under the title Amor Rojo, on the legacy of Marxist feminist Alexandra Kollontai, the persistence of concepts coined by her in current transfeminisms, and the political capital of feminist disappointment.

Pedagogical approach and expectations of students

My approach to teaching is non-hierarchical, collective, politically aware; encouraging research and project-based, long-term practice; focusing on situated knowledges and horizontal structures; and taking care and enjoying the company of each other.

  www.doragarcia.org