Michelle-Marie Letelier

Michelle-Marie Letelier (she/them) is a Chilean artist based in Berlin.

Reverberating her early life in the Atacama Desert; between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, her multidisciplinary work orchestrates transformations of so-called ‘natural resources’, alongside extensive wide-ranging, interdisciplinary research into the sea-landscapes where their exploitation and speculation take place. Through her work, she blends different epochs, regions and societies, examining political-economic, historical and cultural aspects.

Since establishing in Berlin in 2007, she has been particularly invested in examining coal, copper, saltpetre, wind, salmon and, more recently, slime, in order to create a poetic work applying their properties — such as electrical conductivity, crystallisation, agency and plasticity. In her practice, she experiments with chemical and physical transformation processes that produce the artworks themselves, as well as their poiesis, beyond the extractive industry and its forms of control.

Letelier graduated from the Universidad Católica de Chile and has participated in Organismo | Art in Applied Critical Ecologies study program (2024, TBA21, Madrid), Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt art IT (2010, Berlin) an...

2024 ORGANISMO I Art in Applied Critical Ecologies Program, TBA21–Academy/Museo Nacional Thyssen- Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain

2007-2008 Experimental Media Design (Guest Student), Prof. Maria Vedder, UDK, Berlin

2003 Video Tutorial Program, Prof. Guillermo Cifuentes, UNIACC, Santiago, Chile

1996-2000 Bachelor of Fine Arts (BA), Pontificia Universidad Católica, Santiago, Chile

Selected solo Exhibitions:

2025
- (upcoming) TRANSHEMISPHERIA, Hå Gamle Prestegard, Nærbø, Norway
2022
- TRANSHEMISFERIA, MSSA - Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago, Chile
2021
-AM I ANCIENT OR A HUMAN-MADE MACHINE?, Or Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
- EL HUESO, Museo Antropológico Martín Gusinde, Puerto Williams, Chile
2019
-5 KILOGRAMS OF EYE-OPENER, Small Projects, Tromsø, Norway
2016
-UNPREDICTABLE ATLAS, Tête, Berlin, Germany
2014
-CALICHE WINDS, El Museo de Los Sures, New York, USA
2012
-DOOMED SCAPE, Perlini Arte Gallery, Padua, Italy
2009
-DIE FEINFÜHLIGEZONE, Die Ecke Gallery, Santiago, Chile
2005
-MOMENTS, School of Arts salon, UNIACC
-DESCENSO, Espacio-G Gallery, Valparaíso, Chile
2004
-ERASE, Bech Gallery, Santiago. CODELCO Borough Building, Calama, Chile

Selected Group Exhibitions:

2021
-VIDEONALE.18, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany
-ULTRAMARIN, Stanislavsky Electrotheatre, Moscow, Russia
-SOCIETY OF NATURE, OnCurating, Zürich, Switzerland
-THE ARCTIC ARTS FESTIVAL - I AM A MULTITUDE, Harstad, Norway
-(upcoming) ZIN EX, Tabakalera, Spain
2020
-DOWN TO EARTH, Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
2019
-SCREEN CITY BIENNIAL, Stavanger, Norway
2018
-METALMORFOSIS, Museo ...