Instagram story viewer> @olivajosec> Posts

josé garcía oliva

@olivajosec

4.2K

followers

2919

following

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Venezuela. Donate. Link in bio. by @olivajosec

3

0

4 months ago

Who gets paid, who gets credited, and who really owns collective art?

Join us at the Paraíso Latin American Art Fair @paraiso_fair for Mano Vuelta: On Participation, Authorship, Obligation and Return. Inspired by the Oaxacan practice of mutual exchange, we will be unpacking the unequal structures behind “participatory” projects and temporary cultural residencies.

Alberto Rios de la Rosa (Tate Modern & Delfina Foundation Brooks Fellow) @ariosdel

José García Oliva (Venezuelan artist based in London) @olivajosec

Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 12:00pm

Ambika P3, Marylebone, London NW1 5LS by @olivajosec

208

6

2 days ago

A/Owning is up and running after a crazy few months of work! So grateful to have shared this journey with so many people in Peterborough, who led the activities at the launch under the awnings of Hook’d, Chaat and Chill, and the International Food Centre, and closed the night with a concert by shop owner Bhakta and his Nepalese band at his restaurant, the 2020 World Buffet.

This work came in response to people in the city complaining about shops closing, markets shrinking and cultural organisations lacking permanent spaces, including Metal, which commissioned this project. A/Owning is a public art intervention that reimagines the awning as a form of civic space. Developed with local shop owners, the project looks at the awning as an ordinary piece of architecture suspended between the private and the public space, whose outline can be occupied as a more intimate place for public actions.

Each awning displays fragments of a text written collectively by people in Peterborough as part of this project, alongside words gathered from across the city. Together, they form a temporary subtitle for the street, inviting people to walk from one venue to another to read it in its entirety. It remains unfinished, with lines on the awnings becoming titles for happenings when a date and time are added, allowing the writing to continue through the civic actions taking place beneath them.

For the opening we had spoken words by the local legends @charleyfarleyha and @zain.speaks, together with archivist and poet @justkaitlene, who edited the final version on the awnings. The public was guided through the city to visit the four locations with a participatory choreography led by @katems01.

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who made the launch possible: @metalcultureuk @metalpeterborough @peterboroughculturalalliance @chaatandchillpeterborough @hookd.peterborough @2020_world_buffet @viviana_checchia, @yasminesefraoui, @simoneyasmin, @danibenben, @keelymillspoet and @matt.booker1

Photos by @alicemannnn by @olivajosec

3

39

5 days ago

What the Ground Holds
Lucía Pizzani & José García Oliva
Paraíso, Ambika P3, Booth 7, 15-18 October 2026

Venezuela’s modern history was written in oil: in what could be drawn from the ground, and in who paid when the wealth ran out. @luciapizzani and @olivajosec, London-based artists of the Venezuelan diaspora, carry that question into the earth and the city: what are land and labour worth when valued only for what they yield?

Pizzani’s subject is the earth as a body that keeps records. Like Ana Mendieta before her, she places the body against the land, but her attention goes to what the ground holds: what is sealed, compressed, extracted and remade. Her sculptures are shaped by hand in black clay and pressed with seeds and vegetation from South America, so that the land leaves its own print in the material. Almost everything on the booth is new: collages from the Acorazada series, cyanotypes, sculptures and paintings. The exception is Escritura (2020), Spanish for “writing,” a major earlier work that reaches back to the first uses of clay and the origins of language.

Oliva’s subject is the work a city depends on but keeps out of sight: outsourced labour, migrant economies, the hierarchies of everyday urban life. He gives material form to the systems that let urban life appear frictionless while displacing its costs onto those who sustain it. At Paraíso he shows the collage Landscape (bristle by bristle) and Whispers Amidst the Noise, an installation that brings into the booth conversations with workers in the cleaning sector. Alongside these are drawings made during research for As Long as It Yields, his solo exhibition at Timespan in Scotland earlier this year.

Together, the two practices refuse the idea that land and people are simply there to be used. Pizzani shows what the ground holds before it is taken. Oliva shows the people whose labour is taken in turn.

Lucía Pizzani’s work is held by Tate and the Government Art Collection. José García Oliva received the Augustus Martin Prize at the Royal College of Art; his work is held by Lancaster Arts and Timespan.

@paraiso_fair #FriezeWeek #LatinAmericanArt #ContemporaryArt #VictoriaLawProjects by @olivajosec

338

67

24 days ago

Some images of the sculptural site “After Paradise” installed in @forgan_arts_centre’s back garden in Fife, Scotland, open at all times to the public as a gathering space for the next year, following my residency there on migrant ecologies. Over the past months, I shared many moments and many hot dishes here with local and seasonal neighbours who have come to Fife to work the harvest.

The sculpture developed from the previous piece, Paradise (White Snakes), exhibited at @timespan_helmsdale in Helmsdale in spring of this year.

A heartfelt thanks to @rowanlear, @jhwhitey, Helena Simmons and the whole team at Forgan Arts Centre, @wee_anti_racist_library (Anissa and Tom), @liz2344951, @rhonajack_ @doreenkimaiyo05, @cj.izatt, @accurateassignments, @desireecoral, @magarasam004, @feemueni, Allan Yagan, @dantetasha5, @cheptoolydz, Ezra and @kevin_linnett 🤍

*Seasonal neighbours, meaning temporary agricultural workers who live alongside permanent rural communities during specific harvest seasons. A term described by Ciel Grommen. by @olivajosec

3

19

a month ago

Publication for the exhibition“as long as it yields” by the artist @olivajosec at @timespan_helmsdale in Scottland.

The design was developed in conversation with the artist and inspired by the project’s research detangling the seasonal visa systems and migration experiences of the fruit pickers in Scotland.

Thank you to @olivajosec @timespan_helmsdale @giu.liagiulia Cover reads “as long as it yields” by @olivajosec

97

12

2 months ago

Everyone Blames the Weather (2026) by José García Oliva is installed on Timespan's exterior façade as part of the exhibition "As Long As it Yields."
This work takes the form of a site-subtitle and quote extracted from the video work “An Uncomfortable Beauty” presented inside the gallery.

This artwork lends its name to the upcoming festival "Everyone Blames the Weather"coming to Timespan 19th-21st June to explore through three days of free activities seasonal and migrant work.

🗓As Long As It Yields - On view until 12th July
📍 Timespan, Helmsdale
🕙 Open daily, 10am–5pm
Photo courtesy of the artist @olivajosec by @olivajosec

106

4

4 months ago

As you enter the exhibition space of "As Long as it Yields," by José García Oliva one of the first work you encounter is Untitled (seasonal worker caravan plaques). This is a series of drawings made on fragments of polythene cut from agricultural polytunnels, using waterproof acrylic marker used on farms to number rows, tunnels, and picking units.

The drawings trace the exoticised names once used to market holiday caravans in the UK during the late 1990s and early 2000s as symbols of leisure and escape, selling an imagined version of paradise. Detached from their original purpose, these caravans are now repurposed as accommodation for seasonal agricultural workers.

Alongside this, Becoming a Champion Picker presents audio from a worker induction video of the same title, used on British farms in different languages, where workers are given words of motivation and instructions on how to reach “champion” status by following precisely and meeting production targets.

You can discover Untitled and Becoming a Champion Picker by visiting As Long As it Yields at Timespan.
🗓As Long As It Yields - On view until 12th July
📍 Timespan, Helmsdale
🕙 Open daily, 10am–5pm
Photo courtesy of the artist by @olivajosec

102

12

5 months ago

Paradise (White Snake), the exhibition’s central sculptural work, takes the form of an inverted polytunnel skeleton in steel. Fitted with a circulating fountain system, a viscous liquid composed using a historical “snake oil” formula (mineral oil, beef fat, and chilli powder) drips through the structure before recirculating in a closed loop. Alongside the sculpture is the video work An Uncomfortable Beauty, where testimonies from seasonal workers in both Russian and English overlap with images of polytunnel windows.

🗓As Long As It Yields - On view until 12th July

📍 Timespan, Helmsdale

🕙 Open daily, 10am–5pm

Sound editing (An Uncomfortable Beauty) by @jasperjeurissen
Video documentation edited by @_anamariaag by @olivajosec

3

9

4 months ago

As Long As it Yields by @olivajosec was developed through an extended research and participatory process working with seasonal workers through conversations and gatherings in Perth, Dundee, and London, in collaboration with the @workersupportcent and @justiceisnotseasonal.

In the gallery you can find a collection of drawings and handwritten testimonies made by agricultural seasonal workers, responding to travel, work, and housing, the drawings trace routes from participants’ homes to the UK farms, they explore picking routines and interiors of caravan accommodations of those living temporarily in the UK through the Seasonal Worker visa route.

The exhibition is now open every day and you can visit it for free from 10am to 5pm.
🗓As Long As It Yields - On view until 12th July
📍 Timespan, Helmsdale
🕙 Open daily, 10am–5pm
Photo and scans courtesy of the artist taken in Timespan by @olivajosec

51

0

6 months ago

🌱We are so pleased to introduce José García Oliva, who has been appointed as our ‘Ecologies of Migration’ Artist-in-Residence this Summer.

During his time spent here, he’ll continue developing a project exploring the relationship between industrial agriculture and outsourced labour in Fife and the UK. Building on conversations with seasonal workers, organisers, researchers and farm visits, the research focuses on the material, ecological, and labour conditions shaping these realities.

Through gatherings and open discussions at Forgan Arts Centre, the project seeks to build connections between migrant workers and local communities, creating space for dialogue and exchange. A central question in his research is what it means to encounter a product proudly labelled “Produced in the UK” and to consider the layers of labour, movement, an ecological impact that this conceals.

Last weekend, José hosted a first gathering of seasonal workers from nearby farms, shared a feast of dishes from Venezuela and organised a talk introducing @workersupportcent, an organisation based in Dundee who provide advice and support for marginalised workers in Scotland.

We’re excited to see what will unfold over the next few months, as José spends more time with us and our community in North East Fife.

⭐️In the meantime, you can catch José this weekend at @timespan_helmsdale, where he is co-organising Everyone Blames the Weather, a Solstice Festival on Migrant Labour and Seasonal Work.

📸 Photography credit to @kevin_linnett
#ForganArtsCentre taken in Forgan Arts Centre by @olivajosec

505

32

4 months ago

En Fila (In Line) is a large artwork featured on Timespan’s exterior wall part of the exhibition "As Long As it Yields." Presented at the entrance of the building, the work blows up a drawing by Wilian Subelza Velasquez, a seasonal agricultural worker who travelled from Bolivia to work in the UK. The image depicts a line of workers standing beside a conveyor belt of harvested fruit, rendered without hands.

The artwork spotlights the self-representation of seasonal agricultural worker, experience put front and centre as part of the upcoming festival "Everyone Blames the Weather" (Jun 19th-21st)

Discover this and other artworks by visiting the free exhibition "As Long As it Yields" by José García Oliva.
🗓As Long As It Yields - On view until 12th July
📍 Timespan, Helmsdale
🕙 Open daily, 10am–5pm
Photo and scan courtesy of the artist by @olivajosec

31

0

4 months ago