Laura Huertas Millán

Laura Huertas Millán (b. 1983) is a Colombian-French artist and filmmaker. Her works have been presented in various cinema festivals, including the IFFR, FIDMarseille, Cinéma du Réel, Berlinale (Forum Expanded), and Locarno Film Festival. Widely shown in the contemporary art world, her artworks are part of public and private collections in Europe and the Americas.

Biography Laura Huertas Millán was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1983. She moved to Paris for college where she earned a PhD in Ethnographic Fictions in 2017. Since then, she has produced work in the genre of ethnofiction, a method which blends anthropological evidence with elements of creative storytelling. Her work deals with themes of imperialism, the post-colonial Other, and objectivation of non-Western bodies. As of 2020, Huertas Millán has created a total of eight films. Many of her works have been presented in solo and group exhibitions, solo screenings, and in cinema festivals. Huertas Millán also has written articles for art publications such as "De l'Amérique" (2011), "Les mythologies absentes" (2013), "The Obsidian King" (2016), and "The Liar" (2017).

Education Huertas Millán attended the School of Fine Arts (MFA, 2009) and Le Fresnoy (MFA, 2012), and received her PhD in Ethnographic Fictions in 2017 from PSL University (SACRe program).

Artworks In Huertas Millán's work in ethnofictions: a work that introduces art in the form of storytelling, she draws her inspiration from Chick Strand and Trinh T. Minh-ha; both filmmakers who offer critiques from an "imperialist and colonialist gaze." In this perspective, Huertas Millán examines the study of anthropological origins, such as cultural and social development that is seen in humans. Her artworks intersects between cinema and contemporary art to convey post-colonialism and social history as methodologies to her work, which analyses the direct origins that impacts the way humans live. Jiíbie (2019), El Laberinto (2018), and Sol Negro (2016) are among of many eminent works created by Huertas Millán that examines modern life in relation to its history.

Jiíbie (2019) In Jiíbie (2019), her work focuses on nature and the pivotal roots the plant, jiíbie (or mambe), and its sacred ties with the Muiná-Muruí community; the native people of America who "have used and revered the coca leaf" and its production in the Colombian Amazon. The medium showcases the film in rich, dark colours with minimal gradient in the background to merge the distinct colors as the speaker voices the importance the plant. Jiíbie was presented in various cinema festivals, such as the Berlinale, Punto de Vista, Cámara Lúcida, and among many more; the film was also exhibited at the Future Generation Art Prize at Pinchuk Art Centre and Venice Biennale.

El Laberinto (2018) Otherwise known as "The Labyrinth," Huertas Millán explores the cultures of contemporary Colombia, in which the devastation from narcocapitalism "coexists with enduring precolonial relations to the world, creating an accord between the violence of the drug wars, the violence of European conquest, and possibilities of survival and resistance against both." Laura Huertas Millán's El Laberinto (2018) was awarded by Locarno Festival (best direction prize), Bogoshorts Festival (best experimental short film; best editing; best script), and the Uruguay International Film Festival (special mention; best short film).

Sol Negro (2016) In the film Sol Negro (2016), Huertas Millán employs the imagery of the solar eclipse to parallel the opera singer, Antonia, as she sings in an empty hall. Sol Negro, also known as "Black Sun," is evocative of the "dark spleen," in which doctors used to attribute "melancholic and suicidal drives, especially as they affected artists." Antonia is alluded as the "Black Sun," as she sings alone to voice her struggles. The fiction entangles in family bonds as an introspective polyphony, as "the voices of aunt, mother and daughter (the director herself) are heard as she struggles, through fiction, to escape from her family's fate." Sol Negro is credited by various screenings and has won many awards, such as the Muestra Internacional de Documental de Bogotá, Fronteira Film Festival, Doclisboa, and FIDMarseille.

Filmography

Jiíbie, 25 mins, (2019) jeny303, 6 mins, (2018) La Libertad, 29 mins, (2017) Sol Negro, 43 mins, (2016) Aequador, 19 mins, (2012) Journey to a land otherwise known, 23 mins, (2011) Sans laisser de trace, 3 mins, (2009)

Exhibitions +Solo Exhibitions2019Video Room: Laura Huertas Millán, Sao Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), Brazil.2018le chant du printemps. the spring song. Maison des Arts – Centre d’art de Malakoff, France.2016Ficción etnográfica. Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Colombia. Disappearing operations. Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, ENSBA, Paris, France.2015Apocalípticos e integrados. Metales pesados, Santiago de Chile, Chile.2013Aequador, Ici, Là-bas et Lisboa (duo). Villa Arson, Nice, France.2011Lógicas del fragmento. Alliance Française, Bogota, Colombia.

Collections

Fondation ENSBA, Paris, France Kadist Foundation, San Francisco, USA Départements des Hauts-de-Seine, France Centre National des Arts Plastiques, France Département de Seine-Saint-Denis, France FRAC Lorraine, France Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, USA Banco de la República de Colombia

Honors and awards Best Direction Prize, Pardo di domani competition, Locarno Film Festival, Switzerland.

Best Film Tenderfilm Award, Tenderpixel, London, England.

Best experimental film, Bogoshorts, Colombia.

Shortlisted, Future Generation Art Prize, PinchuckArtCenter, Kiev, Ukraine.2017Best Film, National Competition, MIDBO, Bogota, Colombia. Grand Prix, Biennale de la Jeune Création Européenne (BJC), Montrouge, France.

Best short film, Fronteira Film Festival, Goiânia, Brazil.

Publications +Art Publications2017The Liar, in Permanent collection II, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, USA.2016The Obsidian King, in Spike art quarterly, Vienna, Austria. Celestial Bodies, on Patricio Guzmán´s cinema, in Terremoto Magazine, Mexico city, Mexico. Avital Ronell´s Crackwars, duuuradio.fr.2013Les mythologies absentes, in Les cahiers du post-diplôme, EESI, Bourges, France. Histoire d’un vampire, in Film Papier, Galerie la Box, Bourges, France.2011De l'Amérique, in ENCOURS, Les Presses du Réel, Paris, France. Place ! Éditions Happy few and gallery Edouard Manet de Gennevilliers, Berlin, Germany.