Valeria Leiva

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Valeria Leiva

Preferred pronouns:

No pronoun preference
Birth year:

1990
Primarily based in or works from:

Guatemala Switzerland
Skills:

activism critical thinking and writing photography
Topics:

biodiversity colonialism immigration
Contact information:

Currently working on:

Currently at HGK Institut Art, Gender Nature and at residency at Prozess, Bern Switzerland.

Quick Facts:

Valeria Leiva is a Guatemalan artist and curator whose work is shaped by ecological politics, decolonial thinking and post-anthropocentric worldviews. Through time-based installations, photography and video she explores how artistic practice can engage with questions of coexistence, care, decay and environmental regeneration. Since 2017, she has been the founder and curator of fotomaiz, a platform dedicated to contemporary photography in Central America that fosters dialogue, visual experimentation and the decolonization of photographic practice. Leiva is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel HGK Institute Art Gender Nature. Her work has been exhibited in Guatemala, Mexico, Argentina, Austria and Switzerland.

Three relevant works from the last 5 years of artistic practice:

Work samples:

The Hybrid

Fungal Communication

Dry branches, chalk, mycelium, bacterial cellulose.

2025

Fungal Communication uses mycorrhizal networks as an interspecies telephone booth. With a membrane that allows hyphae to recognize vibrations and emit bioelectrical signals that travel through the mycelial network to different parts of planet Earth in order to send a message.This project is inspired by organic technologies as possible alternatives for utopian futures, suggesting that in the future we might find other decentralized ways of telecommunications.

Bodies of Time

Photograms 2024

Bodies of Time repairs on the separation between nature and humanity, a colonial narrative that disconnected humans from the living world. Using light and elements of the local landscape, the artist captures four photograms in the darkroom. The piece, a tribute to Ana Atkins, questions this fictional separation and proposes that all organic bodies, including ours, are subject to the degradation of time.

Ghost Heart

In collaboration with Hsiny Lin.

Mycelium, glass, computer, cables, ECG sensor, oscilloscope.

2025

The installation underscores the vital role of mycelium as nature’s circulatory system, mirroring a heart that pumps energy through the living world. By translating mycelium’s electrical signals into visual patterns on an oscilloscope, a kind of ecological cardiography, the work makes visible the subtle rhythms and invisible forces that sustain life beneath the surface.

The installation invites viewers to reflect on their own bodies and the deep interconnection shared by all living beings, fostering a renewed awareness of the pulse that binds us to the natural world.

Hypha

Hyphain collaboration with Bryan Castro and Balam Say.Mycelium, VR experience.

2023

This piece, created with the mycelium of Pleurotus Ostreatus, is nourished with a maize-based substrate and explores the relationships between art and biotechnology. By scanning the QR code on the piece, you enter an augmented reality experience within the Hypha universe.

Burned Pupils

Acetate print on lightbox

Pinhole photography series, 5/29

2023

Burned Pupils is a pinhole photography project inspired by apocalyptic solar landscapes, imagined from a time when the sun has saturated vision and the world is perceived only as light. The camera becomes a sun, the aperture a threshold, and the image a poetic object—a sensitive sensor and a device for perceiving time. Between ancestral viewers and quantum temporalities, solar colors and luminous landscapes emerge, echoing the presence of a thousand incandescent suns.

Majb’al

Majb’al 0 cero

In collaboration with Bryan Castro

Bacterial cellulose, Ch’oj pigment, Pixel Art.

2021

The Majb’al or zero in Mayan numbers, digitalized in pixel art, painted by hand with Ch’oj pigment, Maya blue, and overlaid by micro-encapsulated vegetable carbon piezography ink on bacterial cellulose paper grown from bacteria, Ch’oj pigment and the Majb’al are two great technological and artistic accomplishments of mesoamerican.