Miguel Sbastida (1989, Madrid) is a visual artist 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 graduated from an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2015-17), with the full support of a scholarship from La Caixa Foundation; where he was nominated for the Dedalus Foundation awards in Sculpture. He completed a BFA at Universidad Complutense of Madrid (2007-12) after his fellow BFA studies in Holland (2011) and Canada (2012). Since then, he has lectured at international symposiums and seminars like 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).
Over the last ten years, his works have been exhibited internationally at venues like ARCO Madrid, Locust Projects, Korea Foundation Gallery Seoul, CDAN museum, Matadero Madrid, BOZAR Brussels, Centro Gaiás Cidade da Cultura, Chicago Sullivan Galleries, Es Baluard Museum, or the Netherlands Institute for Media Art; among others.
His practice has been awarded with several prizes, production grants and residencies including the Asia Culture Center of South Korea International Residency Grant, Comunidad de Madrid Art Funds, Emerging Illinois Artists, Matadero Madrid-DKV, EKWC Sundaymorning, Circuitos de Artes Plásticas, Oneminutes Film Art Amsterdam, BilbaoArte Foundation, 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, Harvard University, DKV Collection, BilbaoArte Foundation or the Oneminutes Foundation Netherlands.
Miguel is currently based in Madrid (Spain) and his work is represented by Lucía Mendoza Gallery.