Laura Huertas Millán
A guide to the moving image artists that move culture → Laura Huertas Millán makes ethnographic fictions that shift traditional film structures to decolonized cinematic spaces.
Artists
Who is Laura Huertas Millán?
Laura Huertas Millán is a French-Colombian visual artist and filmmaker. Born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1983, she emigrated to France in 2001 to attend college. She studied at the Beaux-Arts de Paris and Le Fresnoy and received a PhD in ethnographic fictions at PSL University (SACRe Program). She currently resides in Brussels, Belgium.
What are some of the defining characteristics of Millán's artistic practice?
Millán's practice encompasses a broad array of media: moving image, pedagogy, writing and long-term enquiries. The political and creative realms intertwine in her creations, embodying an artistic credo that has been informed and moulded by her upbringing in the unstable environment of a homeland wracked by incessant civil war. Her films document the hardships of a population that is constantly subjected to the centrifugal pull of competing narratives disseminated by armed forces from various political fronts. This creative impulse originates from the legacy of her own household of low-income artists, for whom artmaking represented a space where alternative stories, joy, community and survival could flourish.
A cinematic gaze informed by deliberate research methodologies is a characteristic feature of her works, through which she reveals the value that lies hidden in the people that she captures in her filmic encounters, thereby shifting the focus from traditional film structures towards a decolonized cinematic space. In Millán's hands, colonial narratives of othering and racial oppression that prevail in ethnography and anthropology are meticulously dismantled, uncovering them as harmful fictions leveraged by imperialist powers. Fiction, however, serves a dual purpose in her praxis, establishing a clear distancing from the “ethnofictions” of classical anthropology and the pioneering of a unique diasporic path.
Where have Millán's works been exhibited?
Millán's films have been exhibited and screened in esteemed institutions such as: Centre Pompidou in Paris, Jeu de Paume in Paris, Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, São Paolo Museum of Art, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Harvard Film Archive, Musée-Château d’Annecy, Villa Arson Nice and Times Art Berlin, among others.
Her films have also been shown at leading world events such as: Locarno Film Festival, FIDMarseille, DocLisboa, Video Brasil, Liverpool Biennial, FRONT Triennial, Sharjah Biennial, Cinema du Réel in Paris, and Videonale Bonn. Her works are held in private and public collections including: Kadist Foundation, CNAP, Banco de la República de Colombia, CIFO, FRAC Lorraine, and others.
What awards and recognitions has Millán received?
For her incisive decolonial cinematic fictions, she has received awards, fellowships and grants from the following: a grant from the French government (2001-2008), the City of Paris Production Grant (2010, 2014), the Colombian Film Development Fund (2013), the Best Direction Prize for El Laberinto at the Locarno Film Festival (2018), the 2024 Nouveau Regard AWARE Prize (with Katerina Thomadaki), Arquetopia Resartis Prize (2013), and CIRCA Prize 2025.
What projects are Millán involved in?
Millán was a visiting fellow at the Sensory Ethnography Lab, affiliated with the Social Anthropology Program at Harvard University, where she conducted PhD research into “ethnographic fictions”. She has also been working on a long-term project consisting of a series of artworks in which she investigates the story of the coca plant.
Where can I find more information about Laura Huertas Millán?
Millán has an artist site and regularly posts on Instagram.