Sofía Gabriel del Callejo

Artist in Residence2022Music compositionPerformanceArchitecture

Dec 20

she/her

Sofía Gabriel del Callejo | Fellow Artist in Residence 2024 | Photo Credit: Ryan Bach

Sofía Gabriel del Callejo believes in the force of collectivity for change. Formally trained in dance, during advance studies in Management, Policy and Culture she began to deconstruct her practice by using the liminality and freedom of performance to explore the relationships between movement, language and politics. Her current practice uses facilitation, performance, organizing, curation and administration as tools for feminist resistance against exclusion and violence. Examples include orchestrating simple performative actions for individuals to emerge as accomplices for change. Sofía is originally from Mexico City.

Cíclos by Sofía Fernández Díaz and Sofía Gabriel | Photo by Ryan Bach

The Fellowship Project

Rizoma(s): Collective Action 8M | Sofía Gabriel | March 8, 2023 | Photo by Angee Lennard

HCL is supporting Sofía to continue developing Ciclos, an immersive action (an experiment), by herself and Sofía Fernández Díaz developed during her HCL Residence in 2023.

Ciclos plays with the idea of performance as a ritual to honor the innate female connection with nature. This ritual invites the audience to sit around the performers, listen, observe, and experience the flow of improvisation.

In Sofía’s words, “Ciclos is an ode to the moon that celebrates life, changes, and process. A dialogue with intuition and symbolism that leaves traces on a canvas. A painting in motion. A live performance of gestures, ancestral traditions, natural materials, and tools.”

The Initial Project

HCL supported Sofía to develop a series of collective performances with collaborators from Mexico City and Chicago, including a project with Sofía Fernández Díaz incorporating movement, painting, and ancestral textile traditions from Mexico.

HCL also supported Sofía’s organization and presentation of a collective action for International Women's Day (8 March) in response to abortion bans, and the Feminicide crisis in Latin America and Africa.

In addition, Sofía used the residency to explore new media, technology and sound, continue to train in contemporary dance, and network with other artists and collectives to keep developing her digital archive project “The Feminist Collective Body”.

Todas Somos Una, performance, 2020. Performers: Sofía Gabriel and Gianella Ysasi | Poem: Regina José Galindo | Video Credit: Sam Katz, Irene Wa

About the Artist

Sofía Gabriel del Callejo studied and taught classical dance for more than twenty years in Mexico. She holds a BA in Management and Cultural Studies from the University of Claustro de Sor Juana, and an MA in Arts Administration and Policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was active in the Performance Department under the mentorship of Maria Gaspar and Roberto Sifuentes. She has presented her ongoing digital project, titled "The Feminist Collective Body in the Americas: Living Archive", of interviews and feminist practices by figures such as the Collective LasTesis and the Mexican artist Tania Candiani, in Chile at the international virtual conference “Construir lo común” organized by Núcleo Milenio de Arte, Performatividad y Activismo. She has additionally collaborated in different capacities with the University Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) the Field Foundation of Illinois, the Hyde Park Jazz Festival, and the Hyde Park Art Center. She has produced and curated festivals and exhibitions at SAIC Galleries, High Concept Labs, and UNAM Chicago.