Simón Vega

Courtesy of the artist and Kates-Ferri Projects

Simón Vega (b. 1972, San Salvador, El Salvador) holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Veracruz in Mexico (2000) and a master’s degree in Contemporary Art from the Complutense University in Madrid (2006).

Growing up in El Salvador in the late 70s and early 80s, Simon Vega witnessed the Cold War in a period when both the United States and the Soviet Union were competing for influence in Central America, among the poverty-stricken nations. These early memories have greatly shaped the artist’s view and approach to the world of contemporary art. His drawings, sculptures, and installations are infused with humor and irony, while commenting on the political and socio-cultural effects of that conflict in today’s Central America. He has exhibited his work extensively in Europe, the United States, and Latin America, including the 55th Venice Biennial (Italy), the 24th Paiz Art Biennial (Guatelama), the 9th Havana Biennial (Cuba), El Museo del Barrio’s The S-Files show (2011), and the Bronx River Art Center (2008), both in New York City, as well as at the Hilger BROT Kunsthalle in Vienna (2010 & 2012).

A school without walls

LA ESCUELA___ began in 2021 with a reflection from its artistic director and co-founder, Miguel Braceli, about educational models for social practices and situated learning. This idea of bringing art and education closer to social realities by taking them out into public space became the building block of a project co-developed with the international foundation Siemens Stiftung. From this vision, LA ESCUELA___ was conceived as a “school without walls.”

Rather than operating from a fixed campus or following a predetermined curriculum, this artist-run platform works through a growing hemispheric network of artists, architects, educators, researchers, organizers, independent spaces, and communities. Its projects take shape in different contexts across the Americas, responding to local conditions while creating connections between places and practices.

Since 2022, LA ESCUELA___ has developed more than 45 projects in 13 countries, engaging more than 6,000 participants in online and on-site programs, and collaborating with over 350 artists and thinkers. Its programs include on-site experimental classrooms and online labs, residencies, public art, exhibitions, lectures, workshops, symposia, and research processes. An open-access Library with over 300 essays, interviews, documentation, and pedagogical resources expands this work into a growing alternative critical pensum of Latin American artistic and pedagogical practices.

At the heart of the platform is a commitment to reciprocal exchange: not exporting a model from one place to another, but creating conditions for different forms of knowledge to meet, circulate, and transform one another.