She curated the selection for Over View during her period as curator for the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design. Since january 2016 she is working at the Museum of Costa Rican Art (MAC) as Chief curator. She has academic training in Art History and Graphic Design from the University of Costa Rica and also in Cultural Management and Communication by FLASCO. She has experience in managing several cultural projects and research projects. She has participated in a series of workshops and seminars about museology, conservation, curating, collections management and cultural policies, and has imparted workshops on curatorial practices in various countries of the region. She was a co-curator at the VIII Biennial of Visual Arts in Nicaragua (2011-12) and co-curates the Costa Rica Pavilion for the 55 Venice Biennale (2013). She has been a judge for the Cisneros Foundation and Independent Curators International (ICI) research scholarships for Central America and the Caribbean and is part of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) of Costa Rica and of the Artistic Committee of the Ministry of Culture and Youth of Costa Rica, as the Visual Arts field representative. She is an academic in the Department of Art History at the University of Costa Rica, in the area of Theory of Art, Modern and Contemporary Art.

The Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MADC) was founded in 1994. It is part of the complex originally housing the former FANAL (National Liquor Factory) and has become a space for promoting, researching, restoring, and exhibiting the latest and most dynamic trends in contemporary art and design. From the outset, its scope has covered the region of Central America and the Caribbean, as well as its links with the Latin American and international art scene.

The MADC has 5 exhibition halls, in addition to the Pila de la Melaza (“The Treacle Font”), an outdoor space for multidisciplinary and experimental events. The Museum also has a Regional Centre of Art Documentation and Research (CRDIA) where documentaries, catalogues, books on contemporary art and design, artists’ portfolios, and audiovisual material are available for consultation. One of the MADC´s main objectives is to promote dialogue between heterogeneous artistic and curatorial approaches, giving rise to a multiplicity of discourses, trends, and the inclusion of new media.

Curatorial Statement

"The proposal tries to bring together some of the works that have been representative within the development of video art in Costa Rica in recent years. Talking about this topic would not be possible without mentioning the initiative from the opening of MADC's program "Inquieta Imagen" which was founded in 2002 as Central America's Video Creation Contest. On its beginning, it sought to encourage digital and audiovisual production as a contemporary artistic proposal. Despite the changes that have been made through the various editions, the contest continues representing a space of visibility of the most recent and least explored artistic practices at the regional level, which consistent with the current social context use technological elements as support.

In the specific case of Costa Rica, the selection has been made from what was detected as strong lines of research within the local artistic production. Issues like the myth of whiteness, the native when it comes to production of local products, the introduction of new production systems or "new raw materials", as in the case of technology being produced in the country, not only seen as coffee and banana products anymore. These are topics that are currently employed as a basis for the rethinking and opening of the identity. Speaking from a place treated as ours leads to questioning what is there and how is it built; this is a present and constant line in the current artistic practice.

On the other hand it is important to notice that within contemporary proposals, the use of video as a tool for documenting a specific action is a recurring item that has to be evidenced. With the recent consolidation of research centers focused on the latest technology for video and film production, it is interesting to notice how artists of the medium make use of simpler resources in technology as a way of pointing more towards the concept than to the formal."

- María José Chavarría