All are warmly welcome to join us for this Artist Talk by Camila Ospina Gaitán on Monday 1 June 2026, 5.30-7pm, School V, St Salvator’s Quad, University of St Andrews.
In this artist talk, Colombian artist Camila Ospina Gaitán will discuss her interdisciplinary practice spanning sculpture, installation, and photography, through a body of work that navigates colonial histories, femininity, and systems of representation. Drawing from her recent projects and exhibitions, Ospina-Gaitán will explore how her work examines the sexualisation and objectification of female bodies in relation to historical structures of power, control, and visual representation.
The talk will focus particularly on her recent research into colonial histories and extractivism, presented through installations that connect the exploitation of land, natural resources, and bodies between Colombia, her home country and the UK. Through works such as Unconquered Natures: Tropicalism in Scotland, she investigates the legacy of orchid collecting during colonial expansion, tracing how practices of possession, classification, and extraction continue to shape contemporary cultural narratives. Combining historical references, fiction, and material experimentation, her installations create immersive environments that question the entanglement of beauty, violence, care, and domination.
Rather than focusing on a chronological overview of her trajectory, Ospina Gaitán will briefly introduce the experiences and questions that led her towards her current lines of research. The talk will offer insight into her creative process, material experimentation, and the development of specific works, opening a conversation around colonial memory, extractivism, and the historical representation of the female body.
Image credit: Camila Ospina Gaitán
Artist Bio: Camila Ospina Gaitán is a Colombian artist. She graduated with merit from the Contemporary Art Practice MFA at Edinburgh University. She studied Visual Arts at Javeriana University in Bogotá, and in 2016, she was awarded the LAP program scholarship from the Japanese government, which allowed her to study in Nagoya at Nanzan University and in Tokyo at Sophia University. Her projects are developed using various media such as sculpture, installation, and photography. Currently, her work focuses on the sexualisation and objectification of female bodies. She has exhibited in various cities including Tokyo, Bogotá, Miami, and Edinburgh. In 2022, she had her first solo show, “Thorn in the Flesh”, in Edinburgh, which was highly reviewed. In 2023, she was awarded the Great Britain Sasakawa Award and had her solo show “Visual Narratives and Pleasure” in Kyoto, Japan. In 2025, she was awarded the Hawthornvale Mentorship Program, which allowed her to develop Unconquered Natures – Topicalism, an exhibition shown at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop.