Agnieszka ∞ Robert

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Agnieszka ∞ Robert 〰️

Welcome to this special presentation of artworks by Felipe Castelblanco—a Colombian-American artist whose vision both Agnieszka and Robert have cherished.

For over four years, we’ve had the privilege of representing Castelblanco’s work: we are Alexandra Meffert and Jorge Sanguino. In Düsseldorf we have created our gallery wildpalms, established 2018, which brings voices of artists from the American continent to Germany through carefully curated exhibitions. Our emphasis is on contemporary practices—artists who, beyond the studio, engage with the world in interdisciplinary ways, striving to understand our ever-evolving society.

Felipe Castelblanco is an example of them, with bodies of work that explore environmental issues by establishing relationships with the indigenous community of the Amazon, from an interdisciplinary perspective, or by establishing a poetic work that explores our relationship as human beings with bodies of water.

We are very pleased to be part of this special moment for Agnieszka and Robert

  • Felipe Castelblanco (b. 1985, Bogotá, Colombia) is a Colombian interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and filmmaker based in Basel, Switzerland. His work explores themes of territoriality, environmental justice, and intercultural dialogue, often through participatory art, film, and socially engaged practices. Felipe’s projects investigate the complexities of biocultural landscapes, emphasizing Indigenous sovereignty, epistemic justice, and environmental resilience.

    He holds a Ph.D. in Art from the University of Arts Linz and the Academy of Art and Design Basel, an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and a BFA from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. Felipe’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at Kunsthaus Baselland, the Quebec Biennial, ZKM Karlsruhe, and the Queens Museum in New York. His notable projects, such as Cartographies of the Unseen and Driftless, engage in dialogue with Indigenous communities, advocating for biocultural peace-building and alternative territorial imaginaries.

    Felipe has received numerous awards and residencies, including from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and the Falling Walls Foundation. He is also an educator, having taught at institutions like Carnegie Mellon University and the Academy of Art and Design Basel. His practice bridges local and global contexts, fostering inter-epistemic dialogue and sustainable ways of belonging to the planet.

  • This photograph was taken in a sacred space, and of fundamental relevance to water production. The Churumbelos National Park and the Andaqui area share deep historical, cultural, and ecological ties, forming a significant nexus of ancestral and environmental importance. The work transports us to this unique place, a dense, misty forest characterized by towering trees with thick, vertical trunks and lush foliage. The perspective, looking upward, captures the interplay of light and shadow as sunlight filters through the mist and the high canopy. The various shades of green in the foliage, combined with the diffused light, give the scene a vibrant yet tranquil aesthetic, reminding us the sublimity of a pristine rainforest ecosystem.

    This work is part of Felipe Castelblanco's artistic and interdisciplinary research in the Putumayo region. The photo is part of the series ‘cartographies of the unseen’, exhibited monographically at Ausstellungsraum Klingental. Basel, 2020 and in group exhibitions such as Videobiennale Bonn, at the Biennale Sud, Museo Emilio Caraffa, 2023, Helmhaus Zürich, 2022. The work is part of two private collections in Switzerland and Düsseldorf.

    Historically, the Churumbelos region was part of the territories inhabited and governed by the Andaki people, a group renowned for their resistance to colonization and their profound connection to the land. These territories served as sacred grounds, with dense forests and vibrant biodiversity that were integral to their cultural and spiritual practices. Local narratives continue to preserve the mystical dimensions associated with these areas, reflecting the Andaki’s enduring legacy.

    Ecologically, the Churumbelos National Park and the Andaqui area are pivotal for the production and circulation of water. The Andean-Amazon foothills in this region play a crucial role in maintaining the water cycle. Vegetation within these dense forests releases water vapor through transpiration, contributing to cloud formation and seeding rainfall. This cycle is critical not only for the local climate but also for sustaining the Amazon basin’s vast ecosystems. The region’s ecological interdependence highlights its role as a vital source of water and a keystone in biodiversity conservation.

    Today, the Churumbelos National Park serves as both a protectorate of this rich biodiversity and a remembrance of the Andaki people’s ancestral territory. The overlap of these landscapes underscores the region’s importance as a cultural and ecological bridge, preserving its dual heritage while promoting sustainable conservation practices.goes here

Felipe Castelblanco ♦︎Cartographies of the Unseen

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Felipe Castelblanco ♦︎Cartographies of the Unseen ※

Andaqui Territorium. Churumbelos National Park

80x60cm. 2018.

Pigmentdruck K3 Ultrachrome on Baryt paper 315 gr. Print by Dipl- Ing, Mario Köhler

Ed. 3/3 + 2AP.

Felipe Castelblanco☀︎ Driftless

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Felipe Castelblanco☀︎ Driftless ☼

  • Felipe Castelblanco's Driftless is a multifaceted narrative that masterfully interweaves themes of water, boundaries, nationhood, and human interaction with vast, fluid spaces. Driftless explores notions of nationhood as a form of contemporary confinement, while embracing on the ocean as a public site for artistic interventions. The story confidently oscillates between personal experiences and broader reflections on the geopolitical and poetic dimensions of water.

    The first section recounts Castelblanco's interactions with Colombia's Pacific Coast, particularly in the region of Las Bocas del San Juan, where the land is in constant flux due to the interplay of rivers, oceans, and human activities.This area becomes a metaphor for the dissolution of boundaries, where the ocean and rivers erode distinctions between soil and water, dream and reality, permanence and impermanence. The narrative highlights the lives of local communities – Afro-Colombians, indigenous Emberas, and others – who navigate this unstable environment, creating alternative spatial and temporal realities amid conflict and change.The central tale recounts Castelblanco's attempt to purchase land in this liminal space. His naive aspirations to own a piece of this fluid landscape culminate in an absurd yet profound realisation: the "land" he acquires has literally dissolved into the Pacific Ocean. This story highlights the futility of trying to impose fixed notions of property and control on ever-changing environments.The second section details Castelblanco's performative journey across global waters from 2012 to 2019. Using a handmade raft, he sought to transcend national boundaries and reimagine water as a public space for artistic intervention. His travels spanned oceans, lakes, and rivers across diverse locations, including Maine, Colombia, Norway, and Canada.The project directly challenges conventional ideas of territory, highlighting water as a radical and cosmopolitical space that defies ownership and fosters connection.Driftless also powerfully reflects on the paradoxical roles of water throughout human history—as a facilitator of progress, commerce, and migration, but also Driftless also reflects on the paradoxical roles of water throughout human history—as a facilitator of progress, commerce, and migration, but also as a contested, often neglected space. Castelblanco’s work merges personal narrative, artistic exploration, and political commentary, transforming water into both a literal and metaphorical site of creativity, resistance, and imagination.

  • By the term ‘institutional work’ we mean works of art that enter the realm of museums and institutions. Not all works by an artist are part of these collections. Museum curators, curators and members of the Friends and Purchasing Committees look for works with a high cultural symbolic value. That is, what value the work has in helping us to understand our society and the world in a new way, and in turn, what capacity the work has to speak to us in the future about that moment in time when the work was produced, the ‘Zeitgeist’. Driftless belongs to this type of museum-quality work, and is therefore part of the collections of the Taipei Museum Taoyun, 2023, as well as private collections in Switzerland, 2021, Germany, the United States and Colombia. Driftless has been shown at the Quebec Biennale 2019 and Meiriet Kultur Senter. Lofoten, Norway. 2017

Arctic Ocean (Driftless)

150 x 100 cm. (2012 -2019)

Archival pigment on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315g

Ed. 2/3 + 1 AP

Arctic Ocean Lofoten (Driftless)

60 x 40 cm (2012 -2019)

Archival pigment on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315g

Ed. 1/3 + 1 AP

If there is a place where time becomes a walking being,

moving sometimes backwards, sideways and then in circles,

then this place is called Las Bocas del San Juan.

Here, the river dresses, acts and sounds like a sea, and eventually

becomes the ocean. One even feels that life itself settled

here to take it easy and watch others pass by. This point

marks a confluence of time and space, beginning and end,

the seen and unseen, done and undone.

Felipe Castelblanco, “Driftless”.

Las Bocas de San Juan (Driftless)

60 x 40 cm (2012 -2019)

Archival pigment on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315g

Ed. 1/3 + 2 AP

  • Behind every great photographer there is a great printer. All reproductive arts are sustained by a cooperation with experts in various technical areas. The printing of photographs has been and still is a challenge, despite digitalisation. Felipe’s works are printed in Berlin by the engineer Köhler, who for decades has been working for museums in Germany and abroad, guaranteeing a faithful impression in colour and material quality. We have chosen to use Baryt paper because of its acid-proof nature and durability.

  • Photography, being a reproductive art, is sold in editions. Each edition is numbered and signed by the artist, as well as integrated in our digital and physical archives in the gallery. The lower the number of editions, the fewer reproductions there will be of it, and professional buyers tend to buy photographs with a low number of editions because they know that their value will increase over time. AP stands for Artist Proof. These are series that are kept by the artist and used for museum exhibitions, which is a benefit for collectors. On the one hand, they do not have to lend out their pieces, but they can circulate to a larger number of audiences.

    Photography as art is a wonderful world, full of technical specifications, working with experts from different fields, which makes collecting a great pleasure.

For the catalogue you will be redirected to our publishing website Ta-bula,