_{Helen Alfaro - Ganadora del Premio Whitman
Cómico mariposeo de los afectos fantasmales, 2025}   

As part of the 21st edition of ARTBO | Bogotá International Art Fair, the Artecámara 2025 Award ceremony was held. This award is one of the most important recognitions for emerging artists in the country, which aims to promote the circulation of new proposals and support a new generation that explores new ways of inhabiting, narrating and transforming the world through art. 

In this edition, Artecámara presented the exhibition And Our 21 Languages Will Catch Fire, curated by Carolina Cerón, director of the Department of Art at the Universidad de los Andes. The exhibition revolved around the power of the number 21 as a symbolic number that unites languages, worlds and fictions. This exhibition brought together 21 artists whose works were articulated as burning languages, inviting us to imagine other futures through artistic creation. 

The jury was made up of three key figures from the art scene: Felipe Arturo, architect, artist and PhD in Visual Arts from the University of Évora, whose work integrates architecture, history and contemporary art; Harold Ortiz, artist, curator and audiovisual director, founder of Timebag, with extensive experience in fairs, design and cultural distribution in Colombia; and Andrea Muñoz, a Master of Fine Arts with over ten years of experience curating, managing and directing artistic projects and current director of La Joia, a mentoring platform for young artists. Felipe y Sebastián Falla, Whitman co funders, also were part of the jury.

Fulfilling its role in supporting emerging Colombian artists, the Artecámara Prize will award three residencies in key spaces for Colombian art: Casa Taller El Boga in Mompox, a program that combines creative processes with workshops, conferences and meetings with the Mompox community; Plataforma Caníbal in Barranquilla, which promotes contemporary and community practices in dialogue with the Caribbean and other international networks; and R.A.R.O. Bogotá, a traveling residency program that brings together more than 22 local artists' studios, facilitating collaborations, disciplinary intersections and new creative processes.  

Meet the winners: 

- Helen Alfaro with the work of art Cómico mariposeo de los afectos fantasmales, 2025   
Winner of the Whitman Prize - Artecámara 2025 

«The almost-frog has a scar on its back. The almost-dolphin has an eye patch. They say they were part of a strike, or a party, or a ritual that combined both. No one knows for sure. What we know is that they're there to fascinate us; the ordinary can also be mythical». 

- Santiago Lemus with the work of art Motín de mugidos mudos, 2023   
Casa Taller EL BOGA Residency 

«I, the dust, was once a mountain. I was bone. Now I am almost nothing, but I travel. I slip into pores, cracks, lungs. I slip through the fingers of those who try to contain me. You cannot contain what you remember. In this world, we are not on the earth. We are the earth. And we have begun to speak». 

- Paola Donato with the work of art Regresar al platanal, 2023   
Plataforma Caníbal Residency  

«There, in the banana plantation, everyone asks you why you left, but no one who stays wonders why. The banana, that plump and generous vegetable, that tropical symbol that they plant in gardens like an exotic pet in Europe, is something else there. There it's food, shade and rest». 

- Mateo Jaramillo with the work of art Plantas Epimecóticas - Serie Peregrinas, 2024-2025   
R.A.R.O. Residency  

«In this world, species didn't become completely extinct. Some mutated. Others were manipulated. The luckiest, like the Pilgrims, learned to survive with the help of prosthetics. They were neither plants nor robots, they were cyborgs, organisms assisted by open-source technologies, assembled from recycled parts from the Thingiverse, programmed in languages shared by humans and non-humans».