An interview with international artist, Simón Vega, to discuss his practice in the midst of facing current events. This interview will highlight commonalities and differences between countries and will serve as a window into the Salvadorian experience. Simón joins us from his studio in El Salvador.

Simón Vega creates drawings, objects, sculptural installations and happenings inspired in local markets, self-made-architecture and vendor carts found in the streets and beaches of Central America. His sculptures are Third World replicas of the sophisticated capsules and satellites developed by NASA and the Soviet Space Program during the 'Space Race', however, they are assembled with found materials, they include transmutable elements, colored lights and live plants. The series titled Tropical Space Proyectos comments on the effects of the Cold War in contemporary El Salvador and Central America. In other works the artist parodies Mayan pyramids, Modernism's iconic buildings and contemporary surveillance systems, creating an ironic and humorous fusion between first and third worlds. 

Born in El Salvador in 1972, Simon Vega graduated in Fine Arts at the University of Veracruz in Mexico in 2000 and received a Master´s degree in Contemporary Arts from the Complutense University in Madrid in 2006.

He has exhibited his work extensively in Europe, the United States and Latin America, including the 55th Venice Biennial in Italy (2013), the IX Havana Biennial, in Cuba (2006), at the Coachella Music Festival in Indio, California (2018), at the Bronx Museum in New York (2019) and most recently at the Centre Pompidou, Paris for the exhibition Cosmópolis 2. He has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Costa Rica, at Locust Projects, Miami and at the Hilger Next Gallery in Vienna amongst others.

He lives in La Libertad, El Salvador.