In its 2023 edition, the jury of this annual award presented by the Direction of Arts and Culture (DAC) chose Paula de Solminihac, an associate professor at the UC School of Art. This creative woman holds a significant place in the world of the arts and demonstrates a strong public commitment through art education.
“Involuntarily, I am making connections that link what is lived, what is remembered, and what is imagined in unconventional ways. I have learned to record and ‘wire’ all these mental discontinuities through drawing and ceramics, collecting clues from my daily life so as not to get lost,” says visual artist Paula de Solminihac on her website.
With a bachelor’s degree in art from the Catholic University and a Master’s in Visual Arts from the University of Chile, Paula de Solminihac’s artistic work unfolds across three dimensions: creating art, university education, and art education. The latter is in collaboration with the Nube Lab foundation.
In 2000, she completed her artistic residency at the Museum of the Barro in Asunción, Paraguay, an experience that broadened her perspective on contemporary creation to sources of thought such as the popular, indigenous, and amateur.
Until that point, her main interest had been ceramics and its processes of transformation. Since then, she has developed a desire to investigate creative processes, leading her to work between the realms of creation and education.
Through Nube Lab, a non-profit organization that she founded and has directed since 2012, Paula de Solminihac and her team have been advocating for public education through research. Paula de Solminihac is a strong believer in the idea that arts education should have a more prominent role in students’ lives, promoting the democratization of access to culture and the development of skills.
In this context, together with the Nube Lab team, mostly comprised of artists who graduated from the UC School of Art, they have successfully worked with over 6,000 students from public schools, conducting 62 workshop projects and temporary exhibitions.
Nube Lab has been recognized twice as one of the most innovative education organizations in Latin America and the world by the Finnish organization Hundred. Currently, in collaboration with professionals from UC and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), they are conducting a groundbreaking quantitative evaluation research on the effects of creativity in education.
In her artistic endeavors, the UC School of Art professor has held 15 solo exhibitions and participated in 22 group exhibitions, both in Chile and abroad. For instance, earlier this year, she was part of the 23rd Sydney Biennale with two installations and educational workshops. At the end of 2022, she created a large-scale work for public space on Miami Beach, thanks to the Faena Arts Award, an international recognition for her project selected from 395 proposals submitted by 72 countries. On this occasion, the jury acknowledged not only the aesthetic quality of the work but also its significance in promoting educational engagement for the public.
In terms of publications, she has edited four books related to education, art, and heritage. Her works are part of the collections of the Deutsche Bank Foundation (Geneva), Misol Foundation (Bogotá), AMA Foundation (Santiago), SPACE (California), and Lara (Singapore).
You are invited to learn more in the following video:
CHECK OUT THE OTHER WINNERS OF THE #ArtisticCreationAwardUC
More information about applying for this award can be found here.