Luísa Telles is an artist and researcher working with archives and historical collections. Her multidisciplinary practice investigates social memory, overlooked histories, and the body as an agent of resistance. She has lived and worked in São Paulo, Lisbon, Hamburg, and Berlin, and was awarded a full-time DAAD research grant for her Master’s at HfbK Hamburg. Her work has been presented in collaboration with institutions such as Künstlerhaus Sootbörn, MOM Art Space, Goethe-Institut Paris and Deichtorhallen Museum, with support from Deutsche Börse für Fotografie, Hamburgische Kulturstiftung, Karl H. Ditze Stiftung, Behörde für Kultur & Medien, among others. Telles has published, organized debates, and lectured at institutions including Kunstsammlung NRW, Kunstverein Hamburg, Kunstverein Lüneburg, Academy of Arts The Hague, and Leuphana Universität.

Border Bodies

The project “Border Bodies” investigates the displacement of tropical plants from South America to Europe during colonial expansion. Many of these species survived in Europe thanks to the construction of greenhouses such as Munich’s Palmenhaus, one of the largest in the world. Their migration is inseparable from histories of imperial power, economic exploitation, and biopiracy, which continue to shape inequalities between the Global South and the North. My project combines artistic research and production. I will study collections at the Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns and the Botanischer Garten München-Nymphenburg, focusing on species native to the Brazilian rainforest.This project builds on previous research developed at archives and botanical gardens in Hamburg, Kiel, and Leipzig, from where I produced installations combining photography, sound, textiles, and porcelain. “Border Bodies” thus reframes botanical collections as spaces where colonial epistemologies can be revisited and reimagined.