This is my lastest participative online performance, where I basically taught how to peel a potato. That was the excuse to start a conversation with the audience about migration, integration, cultural identity and of course, delicious food. I was invited by my friends and colleagues from NACO Espacio Critico.

In 2019 I was invited to be part of VIVA Art Action in Montreal, My project was about creating and researching around the interaction produced when we share food. The potencial for storytelling, networking, friend making, I supposed to see and create new links between people through food. 

Sadly I didn´t got my visa to travel and I have to stay in Denmark, despite that fact and with the support of the organisation in Canada, I was able to keep my project running, with a wonderful team and the help of technology.

We made meetings and a series of instructions, using skype I was able to be there in real time to see how the audience reacted to all the proposals. 

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All the photos were made by Paul Litherland

A performance action for Astrid Noak Atelier,. “Leaves of Memory”, was a reflexion about the collective and individual memory, by creating an experience, interacting with the audience. A bag full of leaves, a writing machine and personal stories of the audience has constructed this action.
Through the performance art and the interaction with the audience, we have put on the discussion the intimacy of the memory, identity and art as part of the society, empathising on how the leave represents our individual experience, while the paper and the chlorophyl represents the collective memory and the forgetting.

Photos by Mariana Bolano @MarianaBolano
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The good migrant. Performance action for Stateless mind, a project curated by @amirzainorin where we have explored the particularities of the South East Asian diaspora. My performance was a reflection about how the migration can determine or shape the culture and the identity of people. The potato represents the good migrant.

Movement for static action was a sound performance by David Sebastian Lopez Restrepo and Gianluca Elia. The artists explore metaphors about global warming, climate migration, and the struggle for getting water in contemporary societies. Using a static bicycle and contact microphones, Restrepo and Elia have produced an action with mechanical and organic noises. 
The performance was part of the project Noisy Beehive.

I was invited to perform at the Anthropological Film Festival SJÓN. This year, the festival was focused on "Sonance", therefore I was challenged to create a piece that combines my work with memory and identity with sound.
For this performance called FooDJ, I have prepared a plate that reminds me of my childhood back in Colombia, "Papas Chorreadas" is a very traditional dish in the "Bazares" (communal celebrations). It is pretty easy to prepare and is full of memories for me.
During the performance, I have connected aluminium plates to a circuit. Producing sounds when people touched the food with their hands. I have collected those sounds mixing them live. Turning my memories into something that people was not only able to eat, but also using electrical impulses, those memories have travelled through the audience bodies.

Exercises of memory. Live Performance at Den Røde Plads (the red square) writing memories with water.

Amager Pedestrians, a collective experience of wonder. Was a collective exhibition where a group of wonders had discovered new perspectives of the Amagerkener landscape.

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The streets resemble pipes into which men are sucked says Max Piccard in his book, The flight from God, talking about the relationship between mankind and the society, specifically modern society. Picard was talking explicitly about the faith and secularization of the modernity, but we can also use his metaphor to understand everyday life in the cities.

We walk through the same streets every time we go to work, for example, we watch the same things, and often the same people. At some point, we start invisibilizing the signs around us. Because we are immersing into routines.
The neighbourhood Amager in the city of Copenhagen does not escape from this behaviour. People are overwhelmed in their journeys, forgetting the particularities of the place. This project wanted to explore the neighbourhood to find new ways to observe the city, creating a cartography of wonders.

With this aim, we have created a group of explorers and together we wander through the streets of Amager. We have found turning points, elements, and we used them as a way to appreciate differently the landscape of the neighbourhood. Using the walk as a methodology for work, we made performance art actions, collect objects and images of the places we have visited.

As part of the event called Fermenting Feminism. We use the traditional Chicha to put in discussion the development of the knowledge and the transmission of it. My mother has taught us how to make this delicious drink, she brought the materials and then we shared the final product and some stories about the resistance of the memory in Colombia. We have performed with the anthropologist Sunniva Gudmundsdóttir Mortensen, and my mother Carmen Julia Restrepo.

They didn´t kill all the flowers. Image from the series of performance "Footsteps of the colony" (12th of October Day of the colonial pain) for the International Bienal of Performance Art Colombia 2018. Photo by Anders Bentzon.

This performance is part of a series that I do every 12th of October, remembering the day of the conquest of the American continent. in this series, the aim is to think about the marks or traces of the colonization over the American countries, looking for new paths of de-colonialization. 

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In this performance, I was walking through the streets of Copenhagen while shouting that the wolf was coming, in reference to the fairy tale "The boy who cried wolf", ending in front of the Danish parliament where plenty of new laws anty migration were signed lately. The performance was an open question to frame the problematic of topics such as migration politics, terrorism, but also empathy and the sense of caring of each other. 

The second edition of the International Performance Art Festival, Body Landscapes, is a continuation of our work to strengthen the relationship between Danes and foreigners, emphasizing the Nordic cooperation. The project is constituted by workshops, live performances and video performances, where the participants question and play with the idea of movement and memory. We combine outdoor and indoor actions, and our aim is also to reach new audiences for performance art in public spaces.

Instructions for making business II, performance at The abandoned city of Pyramiden, in the North Pole, during Arctic Action NIAN Svalbard. Photo by Peter Rosvik.

A performance about the relationship between violence and coal mining business. Having in mind the Colombian case compared with the Soviet Union.

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Instructions for making business I, performance at Svalbard museum during Arctic Action NIAN Svalbard. Photo by Peter Rosvik 

A performance about the relationship between violence and coal mining business. Having in mind the Colombian case.

Instructions for making business IlI, performance at the seashore in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, during Arctic Action NIAN Svalbard. Photo by Peter Rosvik 

A performance about the relationship between violence and coal mining business.

Are you having fun was a performance part of Nordic Action Åland, where the artist David Sebastian Lopez and the anthropologist Sunniva Gudmundsdóttir Mortensen wanted to question the cruise ship industry, playing with the idea of chickens locked on cages being transported from one place to another. The only difference is the luxurious cages.

Nordic Actions was a project focused on Nature, Food and Art exchange in the field of performance art. The project happened in Åland, Svalbard, Sweden and the Faroe Islands, with artists from Finland, Norway, Sweden, Faroe Islands, Malaysia, Colombia, and Denmark. During the project, we have created workshops, conversations and performance actions with artists, local actors, and producers. The aim was to create a perspective who involves the environment and the context in the creative process of performance art. By planning meetings, workshops, discussions and doing art together, to strengthen the nexus between art and community. Furthermore, artists and new audiences had the opportunity to re-think the relation with nature as the basis of awareness.

A performance art festival in Copenhagen.
In collaboration with the Danish Art Foundation, Verdens Kultur Centret and Performance Køkkenet.
Curated By David Sebastian Lopez Restrepo
Colombian artist based in Copehagen.

A collective performance on the streets of Nørrebro, Copenhagen, Denmark. We got a white sofa and we carry it across the neighborhood, asking the people for draw it and also for perform in any way using it. We draw, we perform, we had coffee, we eat cookies, we enjoy the rain and the sun and these are the photographies of our experimental walk with the collaboration of Mads Floor Andersen and Kaur Chimuk.

During the performance, I read out loud a text from the official web page of Dansk Folkeparti (right wing party) concerning their migration politics. At the same time, I destroyed the chair that I was sitting on. I had difficulties reading the text in Danish and this problem made explicit the disadvantages of Dansk Folkeparti´s discourse.

The performance is a critique of the migration politics of the growing European right wing parties and the subsequent situation of immigrants in Denmark.

Performance "Disappearances", a work made in collaboration with the danish performance artist, Mads Floor Andersen, during the celebration of the "day of the deaths" in the Verden Kultur Centret, Copenhagen, Denmark. 2016.

19th of October, international day of barefooted walking.
This action is a ritual about returning from the earth to the sea.

Video-performance barefooted

Performance Installation with 1000 paper boats. People were asked to write their final thoughts before heading on a big journey.
By:
Sunniva Gudmundsdóttir Mortensen
David Sebastián Lopez Restrepo.
Copenhaguen, Denmark, 2016.
Video: Hilal Can
Photo: Anna Katrina Gudmundsdóttir Mortensen

After covering their faces with smashed bananas, the artists walk along the boulevard Stroget in the downtown of Copenhagen, leaving traces of their bodies silhouettes drawn with chalk on the floor.

the artists sit down on the rocks beside the famous Little Mermaid of Copenhagen to eat fish with bread, while talking about art and their own memories along with a couple of german tourist that joined them casually.

In front of the famous Michelangelo´s David sculpture replica, the artists perform a ritual of cleaning each other the canon of european beauty, using chip vodka and robbed branches from the queen´s garden.

Hot potato is a performance that highlights the problem of energy business in Colombia and Denmark, especially the sale of the two big companies, Isagen and Dong Energy. feat Torben Sangild, Danish Journalist and Master in Contemporary Art.

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Part of a COLAB Conversation Kitchens project which is the result of a collaboration between Liveart.dk and Portuguese artist and curator Marcio Carvalho.

Tusind Tak (1000 thanks) is a metaphor about the coal mining in Colombia. That performance was in the space of art and migration CAMP (Center for Art on Migration Politics) in the Trampoline House. In collaboration with COLAB editions and Liveart.dk

Part of a COLAB Conversation Kitchens project which is the result of a collaboration between Liveart.dk and Portuguese artist and curator Marcio Carvalho.

Walking coal is a performance that highlights the relation between coal mining and violence. The global coal business generates social conflict, violence and environmental destruction. 

Walking through the streets of Copenhagen, between the office of two energy companies, will be the beginning of a process of memory production. 

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Part of a COLAB Conversation Kitchens project which is the result of a collaboration between Liveart.dk and Portuguese artist and curator Marcio Carvalho.

The American gold was a performance that wanted to point out and reflex about the link between nature and gold mining in Colombia, the destruction of the home and the memory. 

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COLAB Conversation Kitchen consists of six meetings between representatives from official Denmark and established artists from Africa, America and the Middle East. The six artists will be staying a month at Danish institutions assisted by Danish mentors. 

Torben Sangild, culture reporter at Zetland and Politiken, and David Sebastian Lopez Restrepo (Colombia).

COLAB Conversation Kitchens are the result of a collaboration between Liveart.dk and Portuguese artist and curator Marcio Carvalho.

Este performance reflexiona sobre el avance de la minería de oro, que arrasa a su paso no solo con los bosques, fuentes hídricas y otras riquezas naturales, sino que también arranca las vidas de quienes se interponen en su camino. Cesar Garcia fue un activista y líder comunal que se oponía a la extracción de oro en la mina "La colosa" en el territorio de Cajamarca, Colombia. le apodaban "el loco" y en su gesta movilizó a los campesinos de la region entorno a la seguridad alimentaria y la importancia del agua para la supervivencia de el entorno en el que vivía. Cesar Garcia no es el único activista asesinado por la mano oscura de la minería.

"Gold Kills" is a performance that denunciates the development of Gold mining which destroys trees, water sources and other natural riches, as well as the lives of people who stand in the way of its progress. 
Cesar García was an activist and community leader who opposed to the extraction of gold in the mine, The Giant, in the region of Cajamarca in Colombia. He was called "el loco" (the Crazy one) and with his discourses about the necessity of food security and water for survival, he managed to unite and mobilize the majority of the peasants living and working in Cajamarca. He was always found in the front row of the demonstration, shouting "Yes to Life, No to the Mine". 
On Saturday, the 2nd of November 2013, when Cesar Garcia was out walking with his wife and 9 year old daughter, he was shot in the head and died immediately. He is yet another activist who has been assassinated by the dark hand of mining.

The performance, made by David Sebastian Lopez Restrepo, took place outside Props Café on Blågårdsgade in Copenhagen. I documented the performance and in the attached video you can see a visual summary of the action.

Este trabajo muestra una perspectiva del conflicto armado en Colombia, específicamente del repertorio violento de los últimos 40 años, fue presentado en el espacio de artes “La Lunares” en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Como resultado de la investigación sobre violencia y arte en Colombia, para mi grado de maestría en la Universidad Nacional de las Artes. Presenté una exhibición donde la obra se consumiera, de ahí que haya escogido hacer las armas que encontré dentro de los repertorios violentos de Colombia con diferentes recetas de pan. Cada receta es una manera de abordar el lenguaje mismo de la violencia y cada acercamiento a la obra supone una activación del circuito consumo. El pan nuestro de cada día alude a la oración católica el padre nuestro, colocando la cotidianidad de la violencia a su mismo nivel. Alimentarse se configura de tal manera que el espectador está consumiendo la violencia en un acto metafórico.

This work shows a perspective on the armed conflict in Colombia, specifically the repertory of violence

from the last 40 years. It was presented in "La lunares" gallery Buenos Aires, Argentina. As a result of the research on violence and art in Colombia, for my master's degree in the National University of Arts. I presented an exhibition where the work was consumed, that is why i have chosen to cook bread weapons with different recipes. Each recipe is a way to use the language of violence and each aproximation to the work is an activation of the circuit of consumption. Our daily bread refers to a Catholic prayer, the Holy Father, but placing the daily routine of violence at their same level. Feed is configured to the Viewer consuming violence in a methaphorical act

Este trabajo es una reflexion acerca del funcionamiento de la democracia en ciudades como Tunja, Boyacá, Colombia. Donde el café es un testigo latente de todos los procesos relacionados con ésta. mas de dos siglos de historia tiene el café en colombia y es el motor de toda una sociedad. 

En la acción se instaba a los espectadores a invitar a tomar café a un desconocido.

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This performance introduce a way to thing about the polity and democracy ofcities like Tunja, Boyacá. Coffee is a silent witness of life, in all its aspects, is the fuel of workclock society.

During the development of the performance, i invited couples of strangers to take a coffee together.

En este performance exploro la relacion de los migrantes con su propia comida. Para esto, preparé un plato cololmbiano llamado "Arepas" al tiempo que le contaba al publico mi propia historia de migración. los espectadores ayudaron en la preparación del plato y terminamos el performance cuando nos reunimos a comer juntos lo que habiamos preparado.

This performance explore the relation between migrants and their food. i prepared a tipical plate from Colombia called "Arepas", in the meantime i told  my own story of migration. the viewers helped preparing the dish.  The performance ended with all  of us eating together.

Esta performance se realizó en la ciudad de Santa Marta el 12 de octubre de 2015 en el marco de la celebración del día del dolor colonial.

Video performance realizado en Buenos Aires Capital Federal, Argentina. el 24 de abril del 2013, de el artista visual David Sebastián López Restrépo. en este, el performer se desplaza por la ciudad con un dispositivo de reproducción de video en el pecho, donde se muestra el mismo contando secretos a quien está a su lado, estos secretos son historias de el primer día de varios emigrantes, son pequeñas historias de alrededor de un minuto, los cuales se escuchan por medio de unos auriculares trucados, alterando la privacidad de dicho dispositivo, y la privacidad de dichas historias.

realizado en 2012 en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

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Performance que explora la relación entre el hombre y la ciudad que habita, la sobreestimulacion que recibe y como poco a poco se va interiorizando, este fenomeno es llamado por george simmel como Blasé, en este trabajo se recogen propagandas impresas que inundan la ciudad de buenos aires y con ellos se realiza esta propuesta.
fué presentada en la casa de la lectura, festival de performance arte al cubo, Buenos Aires, Argentina 2012