Art Taaalkssss: Manuela Morales Delano

Manuela Morales Delano, La Montaña que Come Hombres, 2022, installation view Peace or Never, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel/Muttenz, 2022, photo: David Aebi

The practice of artist and curator Manuela Morales Delano (born in Talcahuano, Chile, lives and works in Basel) spans various media often resulting in site-specific installations that address the economic and social impact of postcolonial legacies. He works often include abstracted accounts of wealth accumulation, dominance and devotion. This allows her to connect with specific contexts and geographies, that she reconstructs and fictionalizes in order to create tensions between imposed narratives, vernacular legends and history.

Through different strategies of appropriation, speculation and re-interpretation, the work of Manuela Morales Delano aims to negotiate new meanings through a poetic approach. Exploring circular economies within her work is another important aspect of her practice. Looking at ways of sharing, re-using and repairing, she considers the materiality of art from a social and economic perspective. Accordingly, poor or fragile materials can symbolize strength and power.

In 2016 Manuela Morales Delano founded Mario Kreuzberg, an interdisciplinary project space located in Berlin that focuses on the experience of displacement and narratives relevant to the local area of Kreuzberg. In 2022 the project was relocated to Basel.

Recently, she has exhibited her work at Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel / Muttenz; Milieu, Bern, and Oreilles Internaxionales, Basel.

Manuela Morales Delano graduated with an MA from the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW in 2022.