About

McManu Espinosa

[ artist ]

My work explores the emotional and symbolic terrain of human experience. I am drawn to the unseen — memory traces, latent desires, and the narratives we carry within our bodies, objects, and language. Through photography, installation, sound, writing, and sculptural forms, I construct sensorial landscapes that blur the boundaries between inner and outer, personal and collective, real and imagined.

Rooted in personal history, psychoanalysis, and visual poetics, my practice navigates themes such as grief, identity, fear, sexuality, and intimacy. Repetition, ritual, and silence play central roles, often echoing through immersive or site-responsive installations.

I am interested in how environments — both physical and digital — can hold, trigger, or reconfigure emotions, particularly in overlooked or peripheral contexts. Projects such as Mindscapes and Coitus Secretum explore how imagery, materiality, and augmented narratives can activate unconscious associations and invite introspective or communal movement.

Inspired by artists such as Sophie Calle, David Hockney, Lucian Freud, and Félix González-Torres, I approach the image not as a representation, but as a threshold — a space to enter, inhabit, and question. I believe in the transformative power of art as a space of vulnerability, resistance, and reflection — and as a tool to decentralize culture and generate meaningful impact.

—EXHIBITIONS—

Paratissima Art Fair – Special Project (Collective Exhibition)
Best Artist in Gerace Residency Project
Real Collegio Carlo Alberto – Moncalieri, Italy
October – November 2025

Premio Sulmona – 52° Edizione
( Collective Exhibition )
“Mindscapes“
( Immersive Photography )
Sulmona, Italy
October – November 2025

Tracce Lunari
( Collective Exhibition )
“The Weight of What We Carry“
( Participative Sculpture )
Montone, Italy
Agosto 2025

Approdo
( Collective Exhibition )
“Mindscapes“
( Immersive Photography )
Giulianova, Italy
July 2025

Stills of Peace: Global Future
( Collective Exhibition )
“Snacks of the Future”
( Installation )
YAG/Garage – Pescara, Italy
July – September 2025

Confessioni Inconfessabili
( Collective Exhibition )
“Coitus Secretum” series
( Digital Photography )
Pubblica_Lab – Sant’Omero, Italy
August – September, 2024

WHAT’S ART?
( Solo Show )
( Installation )
Pubblica_Lab – Sant’Omero, Italy
June – July, 2024

FORMATO CHIC N°7
( Collective Exhibition )
“Coitus Secretum” series
( Digital Photography )
Galería Compacta, Bogotá D.C., Colombia
November, 2023 – January, 2024

Paratissima 2023
( Collective Exhibition )
“Coitus Secretum” series
( Digital Photography )
Turin, Italy
October – November, 2023

What Normal?
( Collective Exhibition )
“Thinking Within The Box”
( Interactive Sculture Using Analogue Photography )
WerkBund – Frankfurt, Germany
June – July, 2022

TELEFOTO
( Collective Exhibition )
“Coitus Secretum” series
( Digital Photography )
Elvira Morena Gallery – Bogota D.C., Colombia
July – September, 2020

Environment: Natural, Spiritual and Virtual
Connexion Festival
( Collective Exhibition )
“Coitus Secretum” series
( Digital Photography )
Mattatoio – Roma, Italy
December, 2019

Habitus, Modus, Moda
Biennial Of Venice De Bogotá • VIII Edition
( Collective Process )
“X + Y” ( With Xio García and Others )
( Fashion Project )
Custom Museum – Bogota D.C., Colombia
March, 2017

Encuentro de Fotografía
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
( Collective Exhibition )
“Darkness Calls” series
( Digital Photography )
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana – Cali, Colombia
March, 2012

Analogue Photography Exhibition
( Collective Exhibition )
Various Photographs
( Analogue Photography )
Universidad de los Andes – Bogota D.C., Colombia
November – December, 2011

—ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & PUBLICATIONS—

EXIBART
Instagram feature on “Mindscapes” – Premio Sulmona 52°
[Online] – October 6, 2025

EXIBART
Coverage of Did You See? Art Festival – Alter Ego
[Online] – 2025

RIVISTA SEGNO
“Italia – Colombia”, Supplemento 301, pp. 14–15
Summer 2025 – Print Edition

GIORNALE IL CENTRO
“Tra Atri e Pescara la mostra ‘Stills of Peace’”, Aquilone IX
August 7, 2025 – Print Edition

IL GIORNALE DELL’ARTE
“A Pescara l’arte rigenera il futuro del mondo”
[Online] – Luglio 8, 2025

GIORNALE IL CENTRO
“Stills of Peace: un dialogo tra culture”, sezione Società, p. 33
June 8, 2025 – Print Edition

GIORNALE IL CENTRO
Sezione Cultura & Spettacoli, p. 33
September 14, 2024 – Print Edition

RIVISTA SEGNO
“Teramo e Dintorno”, Supplemento 296, p. 29
Summer 2024 – Print Edition

PARATISSIMA
Instagram feature on “Coitus Secretum”
[Online] – June 14, 2024

FRANKFURTER NEUE PRESSE
Coverage of What’s Normal? exhibition at Werkbund Forum, Frankfurt
June 28, 2022 – Print Edition

Red Colombiana de Información Científica – Ministerio de Ciencia, Colombia
Publication of Bachelor’s thesis “Coitus Secretum”
[Online] – Universidad de los Andes

Universidad de los Andes – Bogotá, Colombia
Excellence Distinction
2013

—RESIDENCIES—

Best Artist in Gerace – Artistic Residency
Gerace, Italy – September 2025
Organised by Paratissima & Comune di Gerace
Exhibition at Paratissima Art Fair 2025, Turin (Oct–Nov 2025)

Bio

McManu Espinosa (b. 1988, Chaparral, Colombia) is a transdisciplinary artist whose practice explores identity, emotion, and symbolic memory through photography, installation, objects, writing, and print. Raised in Cali, his upbringing in a context of socio-political unrest shaped a critical, sensitive, and poetic approach to the human experience.

He holds a BA in Design with a Minor in Art from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia), and an MA in Expanded Media from Hochschule Darmstadt (Germany). His research-driven and emotionally engaging work integrates ritual, repetition, and immersive technologies, such as Augmented Reality, Multimedia, and Transmedia.

His projects have been exhibited in Bogotá, Rome, Frankfurt, Turin, and Pescara. From 2017 to 2019, he held curatorial and organisational roles at Galería Casa Cuadrada, contributing to international art fairs in New York, Hong Kong, Mexico City, among others.

He later relocated to Italy, where he co-founded Pubblica_Lab, an experimental cultural space for contemporary art based in Sant’Omero (TE), where he currently serves as artistic director. He also works as Art Director for the “Did You See? Art Festival”, a project that brings visibility to the most pressing and relevant issues of our time, using contemporary art as a space for critical reflection.

Espinosa’s work aims to decentralise culture and generate social impact through participatory, sensorial, and narrative practices. His recent projects investigate themes such as fear, memory, commodified intimacy, and emotional geographies — blending conceptual rigour with poetic intensity.

—EDUCATION—

10/2021 – 03/2024
DARMSTADT HOCHSCHULE
Master of Art in Expanded Media
Focused on new technologies, user experience, immersive experience, and storytelling
[ Dieburg, Germany ]

12/2023
UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM
Introduction to Communication Science
[ Online ]

10/2022 – 12/2022
DEUTSCH AKADEMIE
German Language
[ Leipzig, Germany ]

06/2019 – 12/2019
CENTRO LINGUISTICO ITALIANO DANTE ALIGHIERI
Italian Language
[ Roma, Italy ]

2011/01 – 06/2017
UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES
Bachelor of Design and a Minor in Art
Emphasis on design thinking, human-centred design, and communication
[ Bogota D.C., Colombia ]

06/2016
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON & SOAS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Understanding Research Methods
[ Online ]

01/2008 – 12/2010
ACADEMIA VERDE OLIVA
Kitchen Technician
[ Bogota D.C., Colombia ]

10/2006 – 05/2007
CENTER FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING
English Language
[ Mississauga, Canada ]