Nicolás Bernal
Colombia
ARTIST BIO
Nicolás Bernal (Colombia, 2000) is a Pasto Indigenous and queer visual storyteller, photographer, and political scientist, trained at the National University of Colombia. His documentary practice is linked to visual anthropology. He has participated in narrative and communication training programs such as Semillero Migrante (Migrant Incubator), Escuela Diversa de Cine Indígena (Diverse Indigenous Film School), where he developed advanced research and multimedia production skills with a critical and interdisciplinary approach. His work addresses from an intersectional and decolonial perspective: migration, the colonial legacy, the processes of Indigenous-racialized people, and gender and sexual diversity in Abya Yala. He has been part of exhibitions in international museums and festivals such as Melkweg (Amsterdam), Pride Photo 2024 (Netherlands), Africa Foto Fair 2023 (Ivory Coast), and Trastevere Museum 2022 (Rome), as well as in other photography-focused spaces worldwide.
PROJECT STATEMENT
“Growing up, I was subjected to the doctrines of hegemonic masculinity, which dictated which behaviors, emotions, and desires were socially acceptable. Cero Plumas (Zero Feathers) is a visual essay in progress, born from the constant violence and harassment I experienced for not conforming to binary gender expressions within the socio-political context of Colombia.In this work, I rewrite my story from a place of dissidence, affection, and memory, drawing on family archives, collage, staging, self-portraits, and portraits. My proposal transforms the body into a living archive, capable of reactivating erased memories and revealing how the personal is interwoven with the political. This work inhabits ambiguity and subverts the identity labels and bodily projects imposed by the coloniality of gender, reclaiming power and dignity for experiences that were once grounds for exclusion. More than a personal testimony, this work aspires to become a collective memory that invites reflection on the historical violence inscribed on dissident and marginalized bodies.
Naming the photographic project Cero Plumas is a way of ironizing the disciplinary demand to “have no feathers” (to suppress any visible queerness): to expose it, but also to subvert it. It is also a direct critique of the political institution of compulsory heterosexuality, making visible how cis-heteronormativity has domesticated bodies—territories of desire—confining them to obedience and uniformity.
Cero Plumas is both a counter-archive and a counter-narrative, but also a political commitment: to interrupt the narratives of hegemonic visual culture, to bring plural memories to light, and to reclaim affections once stigmatized as deviation. Perhaps the question that runs through this entire visual essay is: how can we collectively build spaces where the sexual and gender diversity of bodies is no longer imagined as a threat, an abomination, or a disability, but instead recognized as a vital form of embodiment?” – Nicolás Bernal
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that the Exposure Photography Festival is situated on land adjacent to where the Bow River meets the Elbow River. The traditional Blackfoot name of this place is “Moh’kins’tsis”, which we now call the City of Calgary. This is the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. It is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. We honour and acknowledge all Nations, who live, work and play in Moh’kins’tsis, help steward this land, and honour and celebrate this territory.