Period
2012 - ongoing
Proposed by
Inti Guerrero
Location
Chocó and Bogotá
About the project
Más Arte Más Acción (MAMA) is a Colombian non-profit organisation founded in 2009, working as a platform for interdisciplinary artistic projects that are often rooted in territorial and place-based processes. Through cultural exchange and sustained dialogue, MAMA aims to contribute to the development of artistic practice and critical thinking in Colombia, positioning art as a tool to engage with complex social and environmental realities.
At the core of MAMA’s work is Base Chocó, located within a protected natural reserve on Colombia’s Pacific coast. This site has been a key source of inspiration for artists and practitioners from different disciplines to engage directly with urgent social and ecological questions. Working in close proximity to the rainforest and local communities, Base Chocó supports immersive research that foregrounds ecological sensitivity, situated knowledge, and long-term relationships with the territory.
MAMA is part of the Arts Collaboratory and, in 2022, was one of 14 groups invited to contribute to the artistic team of documenta fifteen, supporting the development of the lumbung programme in Kassel, Germany.
Between 2024 and 2025, MAMA has developed Around a Tree, a series of interventions situated within scientific and cultural events that explore relationships between people, plants, and climate change. Ecology, botany, and the arts come together around a circular installation hosting collective actions, readings, walks, soundscapes, and conversations. Writers, artists, scientists, activists, and visitors from diverse fields share knowledge, stories, and emotions, fostering a deeper understanding of interdependence between human and more-than-human life.
The Nuevatopias Project (2012–2016), nominated for the 2015 Visible Award, was a multi-year initiative by the Colombian non-profit foundation Más Arte Más Acción (MAMA) to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia. Based in the biodiversity-rich Chocó region of the Colombian Pacific, the project invited artists, writers, and thinkers to explore the relationship between humanity and nature through the lens of modern “utopias”.
Our five-year Nuevatopias project marks 500 years of ‘utopia’ by bringing artists, writers, and other professionals together with local communities to imagine a better world. It has focused on food, water, consumption and climate change. To generate critical thinking, we devised a programme of global south exchanges, broadcast debates and formed alliances with other socially motivated organisations in Colombia and internationally. Activities extend from the foundation’s remote rainforest Base to its Bogotá premises and on to our Arts Collaboratory partners. – Fernando Arias
External links
About the artist
Fernando Arias is a Colombian multidisciplinary artist and activist born in Armenia, Colombia, in 1963, who lives and works between Bogotá, London, and the Pacific Coast region of Chocó. His practice spans video, photography, sculpture, installation, and performance, often employing irony and dark humour to confront Colombia’s political violence, social inequalities, and environmental degradation. Deeply shaped by activism, Arias’s work seeks to give voice to marginalised communities while critically examining the repressive dynamics of political and religious institutions, including their impact on gender and sexuality. Internationally recognised since the 1990s, he represented Colombia at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, and his work is held in major public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá. In 2011, he co-founded the non-profit foundation Más Arte Más Acción (MAMA) with Jonathan Colin, establishing a long-term platform in the Chocó rainforest that brings together art, ecology, and community-led struggles through interdisciplinary research and residency-based projects.
