Miguel Sbastida (1989, Madrid) is a visual artist, educator and independent researcher working across installation and site-specific performance, in an investigation around the intersections of cultural ecology, geologic phenomena and climate breakdown. In his works, he investigates the interconnected cycles of matter and environmental processes through philosophical, scientific, eco-critical, and post-colonial perspectives. His process is research-based and understands art making as an entry point for epistemological analysis and social transformation. Through an exercise of interrogating the traditional boundaries between the lively and the inert, the human and the non-human, the biologic and the geologic, his works seek to generate spaces for critical reflection around dominant ideologies of “nature”, and to provide new narratives of belonging, deep-ecology and mutuality in our relationship with the Earth Organism.

Sbastida is a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2017), where he graduated with the full support of a scholarship from La Caixa foundation and was nominated for the Dedalus Foundation awards in sculpture. He completed a BFA at Universidad Complutense of Madrid (2007-12) after his BFA studies in Holland (2011) and Canada (2012). Since then, he has conducted postgraduate research in places like the Harvard Univeristy Herbarium, and lectured at international symposiums and seminars including Climate-Truth-Now Chicago (2017), Ethics for Making in the Anthropocene (2018), Sustainability (or not so much) in art making and its institutions (2020), or II Forum Herbart Roots & Seeds (2021). Miguel is a contributing member of the Center for Plants and Culture, a platform dedicated to the history of colonial botany and plants as historical, environmental agents.

Over the last ten years, his works have been exhibited internationally at venues like Museo Centro Gaiás, Locust Projects, CDAN museum, Korea Foundation Gallery Seoul, BOZAR Brussels, Chicago Sullivan Galleries, Es Baluard Museum, LABoral, ARCO Madrid, or the Netherlands Institute for Media Art; among others.

He has been the recipient of several awards, production grants and residencies including the Asia Culture Center of South Korea International Residency Grant, AC/E – EKWC Sundaymorning, Comunidad de Madrid Art Funds, Matadero Madrid-DKV,  Emerging Illinois Artists, VEGAP, or the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Professional Development Award.

Part of his work can be found at institutions including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Joan Flasch Collection, Asia Culture Institute of South Korea, DKV Collection, BilbaoArte Foundation or the Oneminutes Foundation Netherlands, among others.

Miguel is currently based in Madrid (Spain). Beyond art-making, Miguel spends his time surfing, hiking outdoors, gardening and learning pottery.