Adela Goldbard was the 2017 School of the Art Institute of Chicago Awardee of the Edes Foundation Prize.

Goldbard is an artist and filmmaker with a research-based practice who believes in the potential of art to generate critical thinking and social transformation. With her work she questions the politics of memory by suspecting archeological preservation, official history, mass media, and popular culture. She dissents by making visible defiant events that have been forgotten or erased and by ritually and allegorically obliterating social evil. Goldbard challenges traditional cinema by re-enacting history and by collectively building, staging and importantly, destroying, always with a subtle amount of parody and dark humor. Her work includes photography, video, sculpture, text, public actions and immersive installations.

Goldbard holds an MFA as a Full Merit Fellow in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2017) and a bachelor’s degree in Hispanic Language and Literature from the National University of Mexico. Goldbard is a member of the National System of Artistic Creators of Mexico since 2015. Her work has been exhibited in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Spain, Philippines, Russia, Argentina, Canada, USA, and widely in Mexico. She lives and works in Chicago and Mexico City.

During the Edes award year Goldbard worked on an expanded cinema project titled “The Last Judgment”, which will be based on a XVI century play written in Náhuatl by Fray Andrés de Olmos as a spiritual conquest tool during the Spanish colonization of present-day Mexico. The play was adapted to a contemporary setting, problematizing and reflecting on the current migration crisis in the US, the strengthening of border politics, the hybridization of culture and language and the cultural Reconquista of the lost territory. The stage was built with the help of immigrant workers. “The Final Judgment” was simultaneously performed live and filmed, inserting the spectators in a stage/backstage (meta)experience. The final work is presented as a multi-channel video installation.