BIO

Selected Exhibitions

• ​11/2024 // Karachi Biennial curated by Waheeda Baloch. Karachi
  

• 09-11 2024// Into the Rhythm: From Score to Contact Zone , ARKO, Seoul
  

• 7–10 2024 // Art Safiental, curated by Johannes Hendinger and Anne-laure Franchette. Safiental, Graubunden. Different locations.
  

• 2–4 2024 // Se sirven tamales de “PECHITOS”, food and story-telling session as part of the residency program of KIOSKO, Santa Cruz, Bolivia
  

• 9 2022 – 1/2023 // Alimento, curated by Adriana Domínguez in collaboration with Kenza Benamderrazik and Tara Lasrado. La Cápsula and SAE Greenhouse, Zurich
  

• 7-8 2022 // Storytelling Agricultural Communities in border conditions, part of Photo Kathmandu 2023 program, artistic director Nayantara Gurung Kakshapati. Kathmandu
  

• 1-3 2023 // Que no me quiten ni la lengua ni las patas, solo exhibition curated by Merly Knörle and Anabel Roque Rodríguez. Villa Sträuli, WinterthurOct 2022-Feb 2023 // Here and Now: Anti-colonial Interventions, curated by Joanne Rodríguez. Ludwig Museum, Köln
  

• July-Aug 2022 // Zones of Love, Playbour & Kinship, curated by Lucy Tuma. Shedhalle, Zurich
  

• June-July 2022 // Neue Perspektiven zur Nachhaltigkeit, Arvae art-science collaborative program curated by Tara Lasrado and Alexandra Mueller-Crepon, NaturLabor Arosa
  

• Apr-May 2022 // Underland: Emotions are Oceans. Curated by Niekolaas Lekkerkerk. RADIUS Center for Contemporary Art and Ecology, Delft
  

• Mar -June 2022 // Habitar Tierras Fronterizas curated by Javier Dragustinovis. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Tamaulipas MACT
  

• Jan 2022// Lecture Performance part of Visions of Nature curated by Simon Würsten Marin, in the context of the exhibition Earth Beats, Kunsthaus Zürich
  

• Oct 2021- Jan 2022 // Art as Connection: An Unhappy Archive Part II curated by Sabian Baumann and Karin Michalski. Aargauer Kunstmuseum, Aarau 
  

• Oct 2021 // A Forest of Many Worlds curated by Jose Cáceres Mardones, Domenico Ermanno Roberti and Paula Baeza-Pailamilla. La Cápsula, Zürich
  

• Aug-Sept 2021 // Anamen Fires, cooking program part of the Hochrhein Triennale curated by Franz Krächenbühl and Alain Jenzer. Kaiserstuhl/Hohentengen
  

• May 2021// Echo of Leaf and Body, performance and workshop with BadLab Collective for the conference Open Source Body, curated by Ewen Chardonnet. Volumes Paris
  

• Apr-May 2021 // Picking out images from my soul's eye, curated by Verena Melgarejo-Weinandt and Andrea Keppler. DISTRICT Berlin
  

• April-May 2021 // Loud-reading from the Situated Kitchen, cooking performance curated by Eleonora Stassi and Francesca Cecherini. OTO Sound Museum, Zurich
  

• April 2021 // From Sensitive Pools… and RIVER ORACLE, part of of the exhibition “Intimacy of Strangers” by Riikka Tauriainen, curated by Lena Pfäffli, Sabrina Negroni and Anne-Sophie Mlamali. sic! Elephanthouse, Luzern
  

• Dic/2020 & Feb/2021 // Criptonite #2 SLOW ANIMALS, performance program by Nina Mühlemann and Edwin Ramirez. Gessnerallee, Zurich and Fuchs Festival Basel
  

• March 2020 // Games.Fights.Encounters, curated by Jose Cáceres, Dorothee Richter and Ronald Kolb. OnCurating Space, Zürich
  

• March 2020 // Monument to Use de Space (Use it, you must). PLATTEforum, Denver
  

• Dec 2019 - Jan 2020 // Auf der Suche... Nach Zürich, curated by Nadja Baldini, Simon Maurer, Vreni Spieser. Helmhaus Zürich
  

• Nov 2019 // Letters from Onion Island, curated by Gökçe Ergör. Les Complices* Zürich
  

• Sept 2019 // El Fin de la Mar Caribe in collaboration with Javier Dragustinovis. Curated by Elena Rosauro and Adriana Domínguez. La Cápsula, Zürich
  

• July 2019 // Monumento al Momento del Encuentro, public sculpture and social space. Monterrey, Mexico
  

• Sept - Oct 2018 // In view of the normalcy, exhibition and public discussions Gallery of the School of Arts and Aesthetics (SAA) at Jewharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi
  

• Sept 2017 // MFA Diploma Degree Show, curated by Ian Woolridge and Judith Welther. ZHdK Zürich
  

• Mar 2017 // Christmas Dinner, part of Shortlist Credit Suisse Videokunst Förderpreis, BernDec 2016 - Jan 2017 // part of Auswahl 16, curated by Claudia Spinelli and Rolf Bismarck. Aargauer Kunstmuseum, Aarau
  

Selected Programs as Community-engaged Artist

• May 2023 to date// Co-organizer of Les Complices*, community art space focused on queer feminist and BIPoC people and topics
  
• June 2022 // instructor of Las aguas que nadamos, workshop for children and families living in coastal communities, in collaboration with Javier Dragustinovis. Matamoros
  
• Mar-June 2021 // organizer of This room called GROUND, in support of under-funded BIPoC and queer artists, in collaboration with Gökçe Ergör, Les Complices*, Zurich
  
• 2017-2021 // curator of MEXA! Archive of independent publications from Mexico as part of VOLUMES, in collaboration with Adriana Domínguez. Presented in Helmhaus, Kunsthalle and OnCurating Space, Zurich
  

Selected Residencies and other artistic Programs

• Feb-March 2024 // Art Residency KIOSKO, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, supported by Pro Helvetia
  
• July - Dec 2022 // Art Residency U-jazdowski Centre of Contemporary Art, Warsaw , supported by Pro Helvetia
  
• Jan - Mar 2020 // Art Residency and leader of fanzine-making workshop for youngsters in PlatteForum, Denver
  
• Sept - Oct 2018 // Art Residency in Khoj Studios, New Delhi, supported by Aargauer Kuratorium
  

Selected Teaching experience

• Apr 2022-2025// Anamen-fires, outdoor cooking and reading workshops for Students EDHEA, ZHdK.
• Oct 2022// KARAOKE READINGS, part of the Juicy Things program of Kunsthochschule Halle
  
• Feb 2022// Case Study: Teresa Margolles and Fernando Britto, fanzine-making workshop with specialized group in Fotomuseum, Winterthur
  
• Jan 2021// Politics of Care, food and reading session for F+F students, organized by Gökçe Ergör and Sarah Merten.
  
• Nov 2021// A kind of magic… blockWoche in collaboration with Riikka Tauriainen, Hyperwerk Basel
  
• Nov 2021// Guest lecturer for Decolonizing Art Institutions led by Gökçe Ergör and Ali Monoud, Hochschule der Künste Bern
  
• Jul 2021 and Nov 2021// Making Oracles workshop in collaboration with Riikka Tauriainen, Hyperwerk, Basel
  

Published Texts

• SABER BIEN, in Schpensa Online Archive. Edited by Violeta Burckhardt, Anne-Laure Franchette, Bettina Tschuor. Commissioned by Arvae, 2022
• Conversations between Epizoochory, in MOBILE SOILS. Edited by Anne-Laure Franchette, Jose Caceres Mardones, Gabriel N.Gee , Published by TETI Press, 2021
  
• A war that happened far away, in ART & CRISIS, A Polyphonic Research on the Contemporary. Edited by Donatella Bernardi, Published by JRP/Ringier, ISBN: 978-3-03764-525-3, 2018
  

Selected Grants and Prizes
2025 // Förderpreis Kanton Zürich awarded to Les Complices*
2024 // Freiraum Beitrag awarded by Kanton Zurich
2023 // Research and production grant To-Gather awarded to Collective With the Fields
2021 // Research grant for “This room called GROUND”, awarded by ProHelvetia
2021 // Reisestipendium for ONION ISLAND project, awarded by Aargauer Kuratorium

​

BIOGRAPHY​

 © Yuliia Frolova, 2022

CONTACT

​info@palomaayala.com

IG  @palomito.a

Paloma Ayala (b.1980, Matamoros, Mexico) is a visual artist interested in empowering the relationship between domestic living strategies and political contexts. Her work fictionalizes historical, ecological or social problematics as means of analysis and critique. Paloma´s projects nourish visions of connection between human and more than human spheres, they dream of emancipation from marginalizing dominant structures, and emphasize practices of care across different topographies and borders. Her favorite spaces to work range from kitchen to river shore, from international crossing bridge to agricultural land, from community meeting to aquelarre. Her work takes the form of publications, videos, installations, reading/cooking sessions, lecture performances, and workshops directed to different kinds of public, including humans outside of cultural institutions.

Paloma’s work is rooted in her home, the eastern US/MX border landscapes, simultaneously blooming in her current base in Zurich. She has a Bachelor in Fine Arts (Universidad de Monterrey 2002), a Teaching Degree (Arte AC 2003) and a Master in Fine Arts (Zürcher Hochschule der Künste 2017).

Her professional background as a teacher and community worker has led to the development of a community praxis focused on care. She co-curates the queer, feminist and BIPoC focused art space Les Comnplices*. She collaborates with curator Adriana Dominguez, cultural producer tara lasrado and environmental scientist Kenza Benabderrazik in the transdisciplinary project Alimento, dealing with food systems, agricultural injustice and agroecology. She leads the project KARAOKE READINGS with queer border musician Luna León. 

Selected Exhibitions:

​
Karachi Biennial 24, Karachi 2024
Into the Rhythm: From Score to Contact Zone, ARKO, Seoul 2024
Alimento, La Cápsula and SAE Greenhouse ETH, Zürich 2023

Here and Now: Anti-colonial Interventions, Ludwig Museum, Köln 2022-2023
Underland: Emotions are Oceans. RADIUS Center for Contemporary Art and Ecology, Delft 2022
Habitar Tierras Fronterizas, MACT Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Tamaulipas, Matamoros 2022
Picking out images from my soul's eye, DISTRICT Berlin 2021
Monument to Use de Space (Use it, you must). PLATTEforum, Denver 2020
Letters from Onion Island, Les Complices* Zürich 2019
Auf der Suche... Nach Zürich, Helmhaus Zürich 2019

She has been artist in residency in  in KIOSKO Santa Cruz BO (2024), U-jazdowski Centre for Contemporary Art Warsaw (2022) and Platteforum Denver (2020), among others.

Her work has been showed in Switzerland (eeeh!, Shedhalle, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Helmhaus, Les Complices*, La Cápsula, OnCurating Space, sic! Elephant House, Das Feministische Kapital, OTO Museum, Hochrhein Triennale), in DISTRICT Berlin, in New Delhi (SAA University Gallery), in RADIUS CCA Delft NL, in Ludwig Museum, Köln, in Mexico (Monterrey, MACT Matamoros) and in USA (Platteforum Denver).

Articles:
«Привет Complicxs, das ist ein Loveletter 4U»

by Vic Kiefer for RosaRot: Zeitschrift für Feminismus und Geschlechterfragen, Nr. 60
«An der Grenze zwischen Wahrheit und Fiktion»

by Vic Kiefer for Die Republik
«Artist Profile: Paloma Ayala»

by Cori Anderson for DARIA Denver Art Review, Inquiry, and Analysis