Jose Iglesias Gª-Arenal (DAI, 2020) needs to share some deeply concerning news about Daniela Ortiz, the since many years, Barcelona based artist, who was one of the DAI's amazing guests in Cagliari in July 2019, where she delivered a passionate talk about the European migratory control system and its links to colonialism and the legal structure created by European institutions ( including higher education) in order to inflict violence towards racialized and migrant communities. Daniela has been forced to leave Spain because of endless and shameless intrusion in her private life of right-wing trolls, amidst other threatening, xenophobic agressions.
Jose writes: "Daniela Ortiz, an acclaimed artist based in Barcelona dealing critically with the heritage of colonialism, has been repeatedly attacked, insulted and threatened for presenting racism and colonial background of today's society.
She -together with her family- has been forced to escape and leave the country after the intrusion of many voices from the right wing troll/media fabric but also from other political positions (and various nationalisms) in her private life.
In her work we can see the questioning of colonial monuments, the silence towards a racist past continuing in the present. Her work is part of the collections at Reina Sofia Museum and Macba. This political climate based on destroying opinions and the ones presenting them is unacceptable".
Jose's source:
Watch Daniela's talk for DAI in Cagliari: