Early Career Projects

In the first part of my career, I was working as editor of art and cultural publications, and as consultant for public organizations in Colombia on the national and local level (the Ministry of Culture and Bogota Arts Office IDARTES, among others). These roles enabled a significant exposure to art pedagogies in connection with children and adult literature as well as with contemporary art museum education. I initially worked as editor and coordinator of programs supporting curators and educators; and later, as organizer and researcher interested in the debates and horizons of social impact of art education. This early progression gave me substantial experience with artistic production, as well as with dissemination, use and development of teaching and learning materials for varied contexts, educational approaches, and profiles of learners. Finally, it familiarized me with the qualitative and quantitative assessment of impact.

SAGA Journal of Philosophy Students (2000—2001)

During my bachelor studies I created a collaborative project, SAGA Journal of Philosophy Students, based on peer-learning. I coordinated the project and set it up as a permanent student-led component of the Philosophy bachelor program. This journal project aimed to strengthen and take seriously our academic discussions, improve the quality of our intellectual production, explore shared decision making, promote intergenerational debates, and develop key practical skills for project management and publication. We made it our number one priority to ensure the project had a multigenerational life as students progressed into their BA and graduated. After a couple of years, the project took a life of its own and has published two editions yearly ever since.

Editor of Children and Youth Literature (2003—2006)

I worked as editor of children and youth literature in Spanish for Norma Group Publishing. I was in charge of publication of children books (picture books and chapter books) both edited locally and translated books from several foreign languages. As part of this role, I also developed and co-edited pedagogical material in close collaboration with psychologists and early childhood educators to provide teachers with lesson plans and handouts aimed at fostering literacy and familiarity with fiction. Instructional plans on varied topics (math, science, history) were paired with supporting socio-affective skills. I delved deep during this time in the different stages of child development and competencies targeted by formal education, as well as interpersonal and emotional development goals. I became familiar with student-centered learning approaches and multiple intelligences, hidden curriculum, and varied strategies to incorporate or activate critical thinking and creativity in activities for pupils of different ages.

In this period, I also gave a cycle of lectures on the history of children literature and picture books for young artists, authors, and illustrators at Escuela Nacional de Caricatura. The course covered both the analysis of its historical development of the genre, insights on the creative process of writing and developing storyboards for children books, the pedagogical and editorial aspects, commercial publishing, and experimental formats.

RENATA National Network of Creative Writing Workshops (2009)

Consulting for the Ministry of Culture on a national level in Colombia, I worked closely with creative writing educators, in the RENATA National Network of Creative Writing workshops for adults. My task was to research the best teaching practices of over 30 creative writing workshops across the country, and gather testimonies, methodologies, and recommendations for planning and improvement of workshop practices on the national level. A pedagogical guide book resulting from my research in this project was printed in Bogota, and the free distributed online version has reached the top 3% most read documents (in academia.edu) with over 3000 downloads globally.

Art Museums of the Bank of the Republic (2009—2010)

I was editor and art pedagogy consultant for online exhibition texts and art workshops of the Art Museums of the Bank of the Republic of Colombia (in the Art Division of Luis Angel Arango Public Library). I worked on the pedagogical tools supporting the guided visits of children, families and young audience to the extensive art collection of the Bank’s museums, as well as developing new educational material (handouts) for primary and secondary school teachers.

Corpovisionarios — Citizenship Culture (2008—2011)

My work with pedagogies expanded significantly as I joined as consultant of Corpovisionarios Citizenship Culture Office of Bogota ex-mayor, Antanas Mockus, working on different projects for the agency between 2008 and 2011. In this setting, a transdisciplinary team of researchers commissioned by different governmental offices, NGOs and later the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), supported a decade-long social research on cultural change (with experimental citizenship interventions, art and social pedagogies and national citizenship culture surveys). The projects worked towards improved citizen coexistence, trust, reduction of urban violence, and respect of public space, norms, and institutions. The book I co-edited Antipodes of Violence (Mockus, Murrain and Villa 2012), compiles the analysis of the Citizenship Culture Survey and intervention projects of the Corporation in eight main cities in Latin America during three years.

My career as educator, editor and cultural manager settled inside the art field from 2011 onwards. In this context I continued working as specialized editor while, at the same time, developed several non-formal education syllabus and found experimental pedagogies at the center of my practice.