Paola de la Calle

Paola de la Calle is a Colombian-American artist investigating themes of identity, migration, memory, and belonging through textiles, printmaking, and sculpture. Her materials are intentional and symbolic: painting with coffee instead of paint to explore the political relationship between the United States and Colombia and the exploitation of this resource, screen-printing with iron to examine how memory deteriorates over time, and sculpting everyday objects in clay to evoke nostalgia and explore the idea of objects as portals.

Recently, she has focused on the concept of desentierro (“an unearthing”) to address themes of historical amnesia and diasporic memory. Using tools like Google Street View, WhatsApp messages, family videos, and audio recordings, she examines how memory is shaped, shared, and altered by technology. Her multidisciplinary work creates spaces for reflection, healing, and dialogue—centering diasporic voices and reimagining how we preserve and honor memory across generations and geographies.