ALEXANDRA GELIS
Alexandra Gelis is a Colombian-Venezuelan-Canadian media artist, curator and researcher whose work unfolds across Canada, Panama, Costa Rica and Colombia. Her research-based, process-driven practice spans film, photography, drawing and immersive installations incorporating custom-built interactive electronics, sound and kinetic elements. She holds a PhD in Environmental Studies and Urban Change from York University, Toronto.
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Gelis’ practice emerges from personal field research as a method for exploring and documenting the ecologies of landscapes marked by socio-political intervention. Her plant-based research-creation investigates the relationships between plants and people, and the complex multispecies entanglements that shape territory, memory and resistance. At the heart of her work lies the concept of 'Migrant Plants'—a term she uses to define plants as political allies in contexts of colonialism, displacement, war, and migratory and racial regimes. Her ongoing inquiry foregrounds the autonomous behaviour of plants, revealing their capacity to resist, adapt and act beyond human control within broader strategies of ecological and political resilience.
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Her practice gathers what is often discarded—spontaneous and migrated plants, ancestral stories, voices trembling with resistance—and reweaves them into living, sonic and sculptural landscapes. Integrating immersive installations, video and kinetic elements, Gelis creates sensorial spaces that evoke ancestral knowledge, resilience, and symbiotic co-existence.
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Often developed through collaborative workshops with marginalised communities, her projects take the form of living archives—blending community collaboration, artistic ritual and experimental media. Her work has been exhibited internationally across North and South America, Europe and Africa, including the Walker Art Center, Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Bienal del Sur, Images Festival, Oboro, ArtworxTO, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Montevideo, Modern Art Museum / Gebre Kristos Desta Center, Addis Ababa, and the Recoleta Cultural Center, among others.
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Gelis is co-director of Earth to Tables Legacies, a food sovereignty initiative, and a founding member of both the conSECUENCIAS Collective, facilitating community art projects across Colombia, Panama, and Canada, and converSalón, a platform dedicated to expanding the circulation of contemporary art beyond traditional gallery systems.
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