Scholarship

Andrea Alejandro Freire (Guayaquil, Ecuador, 1989)

Performer. Butohka. Visual artist. Cultural manager. Writerx. HIV positive queer activist. Editor of Maquina Púrpura Ediciones, an independent publishing house that addresses the twisted, abject aesthetics and sexual-gender dissidence. Graduate in Theater Creation at the University of the Arts (UARTES). Independent curator. Director of Las Maricas we do not forget, a space that works on the systematization, restoration, protection, editing, production, dissemination and vindication of sex-dissident archives in Ecuador. Screenwriter and host of The Talking Image, a podcast about animated cinema produced by Radio UArtes.

Claudia Meléndez (Caracas, Venezuela)

Claudia Meléndez is a student of Visual Arts at the University of the Arts. She was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2004. In 2019 she moved to Guayaquil. In that year, she began to visit the municipal newspaper archive. These visits resulted in an absolute enthusiasm for collecting information from magazines and journalistic material that continues to this day. She has had the opportunity to coordinate collective micro publishing projects, participate in art fairs as an exhibitor (such as the “furia fanzine fest”) and illustrate for brands. Currently, she is dedicated to illustrating chronicles, photographic experimentation and caricaturing on her social networks.

Ana Rosa Valdez (Ecuador)

Ecuadorian-Salvadoran art historian, curator, critic and editor. She graduated in art history from the University of Havana. She has a master’s degree in Cultural Studies from the UASB. She was a teacher and director of Community Link at ITAE (2008-2012), coordinator of the Mariano Aguilera National Arts Award and curator of the Center for Contemporary Art of Quito (2012-2015), Director of Plastic Arts at the Ministry of Culture and Heritage (2015-2016). She is the CCM Exhibition Coordinator (2021). She teaches the PUCE Visual Arts Course (2018-2019), UArtes Visual Arts Course (2021), and UArtes Master of Visual Arts and New Media (2023). Coordinator and curator of the MUCE University Museum (2023-2023).

She is currently executive director of the National Museum of Ecuador and its headquarters. She is the founder and editorial director of Paralaje from 2016 to the present.