Leyla Cárdenas Campos

Leyla Cárdenas Campos received her BFA in Fine Arts from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

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Cárdenas's installation, sculpture, and mixed-media practice explores urban ruins and city landscapes as sites of social transformation, loss, and historical memory. Working with discarded architectural structures, archives, and vestiges of the built environment, she investigates the physical and emotional decomposition of place through a sculptural approach informed by history, architecture, and archaeology.

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Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including Palais de Tokyo, Museo del Barrio, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Orange County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museo de Arte Moderno de Cuenca, MuseumsQuartier Q21 in Vienna, Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) Raleigh, Institute of Contemporary Art San José (SJICA), Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Maison de l'Amérique Latine in Paris, Apexart in New York, Espacio 23 in Miami, and MAMU in Bogotá, among others. She has also presented solo exhibitions in Bogotá, Miami, Paris, San José, Los Angeles, and Madrid.

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Her awards and residencies include CC Andratx (Mallorca, Spain), the Pro Helvetia Residency (2022), the CIFO Mid-Career Artist Award (2019), the OMA Art Prize (2016), an artist residency at MuseumsQuartier Q21 in Vienna (2016), and the NEARCH Art & Archaeology residency at the Jan van Eyck Academie (2015–2017). She was the recipient of the Bogotá Biennial Award (2012), was selected for LARA (Latin American Roaming Art) through Asiaciti Trust (2012), participated in a workshop with Mona Hatoum at Fundación Botín in Spain (2010), and served as an Associate Artist-in-Residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (2007). She also received the Grand Prize at the MOLAA Awards from the Museum of Latin American Art in California (2008).

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Cárdenas's work is held in public and private collections throughout Colombia, Latin America, Europe, and the United States.