Click to explore
Artist · Researcher · Botanist
Sfer Ik Basin
Tulum, México — 2024
Somers Gallery
London, UK — 2025
Millennium Seed Bank, Kew Gardens
Sussex, UK — 2025
P////Akt Foundation
Amsterdam, The Netherlands — 2024
Museo Tamayo — ICI | Backroom
Mexico City — 2023
Medicine Faculty · UNAM
Mexico City — 2023
Cristina Ochoa is a Colombian artist, resident in Mexico since 2011. She studied architecture and visual arts at Universidad Javeriana and Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and was part of the first generation of SOMA's educational program in Mexico City.
With a trajectory of more than two decades of constant production, she has exhibited in international institutions, museums, galleries, cultural centers, and self-managed spaces — from the Salón Nacional de Artistas in Colombia (2010) to Museo Jumex, Sfer Ik Tulum, P///akt Foundation Amsterdam, and the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens, UK (2025).
Her research practice has developed around desire, consumption, and value in contemporary society through an ecofeminist lens — studying traditional knowledge, memory, and time. She works with diverse media and analyzes the use of substances: from addiction to the ritual, the plant world, and the history of herbalism.
For several years she has developed the project Pharmakon — an investigation into pharmacy and traditional herbal medicine centered on ethnobotany and ancestral knowledge, working with teachers and grandmothers from different cultures.
Programa Arte y Ecología Sagrada
23 Mayo 2026 · 11:00 HRS
Jardín En-Cantado · Sfer Ik Basin · Tulum
$300 MXN · Gratis comunidad Maya
Impartido por: Daniel Téllez. Reserva: admin@sferik.art
Programa Arte y Ecología Sagrada
13 Marzo 2026 · 16:00 HRS
Jardín En-Cantado · Sfer Ik Basin · Tulum
$300 MXN · Gratis comunidad Maya
Maraka'ame Diego de la Cruz Bautista. Reserva: admin@sferik.art
A living archive — the mind, practice, and research of Cristina Ochoa. Plants speak in frequencies. Seeds carry ancestral memory. The body is a garden, and a garden is a cosmology.
Series I
Pharmakon
An ongoing investigation into pharmacy, traditional herbal medicine, and the ethnobotany of sacred plants. From Tulum to London, Vienna to Pereira, Colombia. Running since 2016 through exhibitions, residencies, and live pharmacies.
12+ works · 2016–present
Series II
Oráculos de Semillas
Seeds as cosmic messengers — from the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens (2025) to the digital oracle at Museo Tamayo (2023). Bamboo, sound, weaving, ancestral voices from Tlapacoyan, Veracruz.
6 works · 2022–present
Series III
Tlazolteotl
The Aztec goddess of purification, earth, and transformation. Paintings, installations, and ritual actions across Mexico and Amsterdam — 52 watercolors, cotton fabrics, earth, palm weaving, and suspended rope.
5 works · 2023–2025
Series IV
Traductor Sonoro Vegetal
Terence Maquina — a homemade synthesizer that translates plant electrical resistance into sound. Debuted at Museo Anahuacalli (2021). Performed in Mexico City, Vienna, Bogotá, and Pereira.
4 works · 2021–2024
Series V
Corazón del Monte
52 watercolors of plants from the Códice de la Cruz Badiano, with Abuela Guadalupe Corona. A permanent garden at the Palacio de Medicina, UNAM — a living artwork that cannot be dismantled.
2 works · 2023–permanent
Series VI
Jardines Vivos
Living works: the En-Chanted Garden at Sfer Ik Tulum (2024–ongoing), Garden of Hope in Nayarit (2019), Arafura Garden Mexico City (2021), and the interior garden at Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil.
5+ works · 2019–present
2007
Photography
Sweet Junkie
Group Exhibition
Photo print on vinyl — a character in the midst of a sugar overdose, critiquing the normalization of excessive sugar consumption.
2008
Animation & Sculpture
Sugar Forest
Group Exhibition
Animation and sculptures constructed entirely from commercial sugar packages. Reflects on mass consumption and the artificiality of processed food.
2009
Performance
The Taking of the Tea
Salon Regional de Artistas
A pin-up housewife character serves coca and poppy cakes with tea, subverting traditional stigmas around the consumption of coca in a domestic context.
2011
Installation · Performance · Video
The Miraculous Recipe
Monterrey · Mexico City · Pereira
Multi-venue installation and performance exploring miraculous cures, plant medicine, and ritual.
2015
Video Installation
Paramar
Casa Espacio de Obra, Rosario, Argentina
Projection on water, plants, and found objects from the Paraná River. Everyday scenes of people gathered along riverbanks.
2015
Video Installation
Ants Trap
Casa Espacio de Obra, Rosario, Argentina
An experiment observing the behavioral response of ants to a concentrated source of sugar in a glass vase on a terrace.
2016
Interactive Laboratory
Practical Paganism
Valle de Guadalupe, Baja California
Curated by Emanuela Ines Dunand. 100 m² interactive laboratory with plants, mushrooms, hydrolats, bacterial cultures in microbial "battles."
2016
Installation · Fabrics
In Vino Veritas
Valle de Guadalupe / Paris
Cotton sheets hand-painted with wine (3m × 1.5m). Collaboration with Florian Sumi, Escougnou Cetraro gallery (Paris) and Muebles Sullivan.
2016
Research · Performance
Pharmakon — Barcelona
Centre Cultural Maristany, Barcelona
Curated by Juan Canela, Andrea Novoa, Verónica Valentini. Experimental laboratory investigating drug/medicine boundaries.
2019
Garden Intervention
Garden of Hope
San Francisco, Nayarit · LILHA Residency
Four gardens revitalized with the local community. Plants gathered through donations and exchanges during the LILHA Residency Program. Collaboration: Neil Pyatt.
2019
Watercolor
A Study About Brugmansias
LILHA Residency, Nayarit
Watercolor and Brugmansia water on cotton paper. 50×40 cm & 70×90 cm. Evolved alongside the community gardens of San Francisco.
2020
Edible Garden
Equinoctial Mini Milpa
Mexico City · Terrace
A pandemic garden begun March 21, 2020, at COVID lockdown. A rooftop living experiment rooted in Indigenous agricultural knowledge.
2021
Garden Installation
Entreminas Garden
Carrillo Gil Museum, Mexico City · Curator: Mauricio Marcin
Garden donated from mini milpa and terrace collection installed inside the museum. Visitors exchanged plants and seeds, caring for 30+ species.
2021
Garden Intervention
Arafura — Garden of Psychotropical Hope
Popotla, Mexico City
Design and production of a living artwork garden during the rebuilding of a house into a cultural art center for residencies in art and ecofeminism.
2024
Living Artwork · Ongoing
Jardín En-Cantado
Sfer Ik Basin · Tulum, México · Curator: Marcello Dantas
A sanctuary of biodiversity, vegetal pharmacy, trans-disciplinary learning space, and site for ancestral memory. A temporal portal to learn from the Maya grandmothers.
2019–2020
Ceramics · Sculpture
Bad Flowers
Pedro Cano Workshop, Milpa Alta, Mexico City
Ceramic sculptures at high temperature featuring flowers, peyotes. Variable dimensions 15–23 cm. Producer: Pedro Cano (RIP).
2019–2020
Tapestry · Collaboration
Salvia Divinorum
Gobelinos Mexicanos Workshop, Guadalajara
2.40 × 2m tapestry. Collaboration with Jaime Ashida (Lead), Abraham Flores (Master Artisan). Clay, ceramics & glass.
2021
Ceramics
Ceremonial Sculptures & Plates
Galeria del Agua, Altzayanca, Tlaxcala
Residency under Rafael Cazares. Plates, ceremonial sculptures, and recycled glass pieces — between utilitarian and artistic.
2021
Interactive Game
Pharmastar Synapsis Game
Galeria del Agua, Tlaxcala
31×31 cm + 25 chips. Explores how love emerges from brain chemistry. Each color = a neurotransmitter: yellow (serotonin), orange (adrenaline).
2022
Cotton · Fabrics
Psicotropicalia Maya
Izamal & Mérida — Museo Jumex Extra Muros · Curator: Kit Hammonds
Cotton fabrics dyed in vapor with Dragon's blood, achiote, chaya, ricino, muicle, bugambilia, Jamaica, tobacco, tepezcohuite. 9×7×3 m.
2020
Immersive Installation
Bioceno
Museo de la Cancillería, Mexico City · Curator: Jeannette Betancourt
Cotton fabrics dyed with medicinal plants + vapor vases for inhalation rituals. Pirul, eucalyptus, bougainvillea, pericón, cempasúchil, elderberry, horsetail, orange blossom.
2020
Mobile Installation
Psychotropical Apothecary
Various art spaces, Mexico City
Mobile and permanent installation with tinctures, micro-dosing, and live performance. Since 2020, presented to 3,000+ participants — 99.9% reported positive effects.
2021
Performance · Recipes
Psychotropical Cocktails
Arafura's Garden · Nina Menocal Gallery · IMSS
Botanical ritual cocktails. In collaboration with Chef Ramses Manek. Merging artistic experimentation with ancestral plant preparations.
2021
Residency · Performance
Psychotropical Dinner Bar
Gallery on top of Bacal · In collaboration with Chef Giuseppe Lacorazza
Psychotropic beverages at the bar menu. Residency at the gallery above a restaurant — where art, plant knowledge, and gastronomy converged.
2021
Solo Show · Residency
CANTIERE Residency
Cantiere, Mexico City · Curator: Eric Namour
Apothecary with herbal tinctures, dyed fabrics, glass, ceramics, herbaria. Menu included San Isidro Mousse, Bhang, psychotropic beverages.
2021
Workshop
Seeds Time Capsules
Quindío University, Colombia
Teaching and keeping native seeds worldwide. First experience at La Montaña del Sur seminar with art students and Banco de la República Armenia.
2021
Ceremony · Research
Praying for Corn Ceremonies
Tlaxcala & Nexquiquiapan, Texcoco
Participation in temazcal ceremonies and health brigades organized by Zapatista communities. Ongoing research on rituals rooted in the Indigenous cultures of Anahuac.
Full Channel
View All Videos on YouTube →For exhibition proposals, acquisitions, residencies, and collaborations.
✦ Your message has been received. We will be in touch shortly.