Mariana Castillo Deball

Mariana Castillo Deball was born in Mexico City in 1975. She lives and works in Berlin and Mexico City. She studied Visual Arts at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and undertook post-graduate studies at the Jan van Eyck Academie in The Netherlands. Castillo Deball uses installation, sculpture, photography and drawing to explore the role objects play in our understanding of identity and history. She engages in prolonged periods of research and field work, taking on the role of the explorer or the archaeologist, compiling found materials in a way that reveals new connections and meanings.

Her work has been exhibited at museum and galleries, including Tate Modern and the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Some of her recent projects include: dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany, 2012; 54th Venice Biennale, Italy, 2011; Nosotros somos sigilosamente analfabetas, Wien Lukatsch, Berlin, 2011; Este desorden construido autoriza geológicas sorpresas a la memoria más abandonada, El Eco, Mexico City, 2011; Kaleidoscopic Eye, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, 2009; Estas Ruinas que ves, Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, 2006.

She won the Zurich Art Prize 2012 awarded by Haus Konstruktiv, Switzerland. In 2013 she received the prestigious Berlin National Gallery Prize for Young Art.