María José Celis

María José Celis is a Colombian born queer artist that grew up between the coasts of Colombia, Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Ecuador. Her migrant international background and culture serve as the base inspiration for her work. She’s a self taught photographer who finds joy, purpose and meaning in the visual arts. Her work mainly focuses on transmitting raw emotions through her lens capturing people, cultures and spaces. She is currently pursuing a Diplom at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln where she has started integrating other mediums in to her artistic practice like installation, film, and audio.

"Hi, my name is María José Celis. I am a photographer and multidisciplinary artist.

We are at Case right now, which is part of the khm. I’ve been studying at khm since 2023. Usually, I don’t really work at khm that much. I photograph a lot on the go, whether it’s in people’s spaces or, like in my last work that was exhibited at the Photoszene Festival, at a ball.

This way I can get my pictures back, be at home in bed, and go through them. It’s also a safe space that helps keep the people in my pictures safe. When bringing the images out of that space, it means moving toward the other people involved and asking: “Hey, is it all right to show this?”

For example, today I had a picture that I wanted to show, but when I checked in with the person, they said they don’t really identify anymore with the version of themselves that appears in the photograph. And I think that even though, as a photographer, I might love this photograph, it’s not really mine to show in that aspect—especially when photographing queer people.

I honestly think that my identity and who I am are very interlocked with my work. My identity also comes with the people around me. I have a lot of Latino friends, and a lot of queer Latino friends. In some ways, my identity just seeps in through my reality, and that’s what I photograph.

This picture is of German Princess Jewelry Old Navy, and it was taken at the Inside Out Kiki hosted by Zanubia Old Navy and Kongolo Old Navy. Back then, I think Zanubia was still 007. Ellie had hired me to photograph two of her Kikis. Any time I get the chance, I try to understand and put myself in the shoes of the people in front of me. I ask myself: what kind of picture would I want of myself in this moment?

It was also a bit nerve-wracking and an even bigger responsibility to show these pictures in a context that I think is correct—one that shows that ballroom is beautiful, magical, and amazing to look at, but also a space of protest. It’s a space of resistance. It’s a political space.

I have this very broad spectrum of Latinidad. And this picture, which I absolutely love, is of course, in a way, me—but it’s so much more than me as a photographer or as a person. It’s also about the people from the same country I grew up in, the people who share this diaspora, this culture, and maybe this nostalgia. I think that goes beyond the individual.

Right now I’m working on an installation that will hopefully be shown sometime during the summer in the Lempertz window. It’s a work dealing with the idea of “Integrationskultur” in Germany and the “Assimilationskultur.”