︎

SEBASTIAN GUZMAN OLMOS













Sebastian Guzman Olmos (he/him) is an Argentine transdisciplinary designer, researcher, and curator based in Amsterdam. His work spans political engagement and cultural production, addressing systemic contradictions inherent in capitalist, extractivist, and (neo)colonial structures. His research and discourse interests are anchored in historical material analysis, class perspective, and revolutionary optimism. Often materializing through diverse practices, organizational efforts, and pedagogies.

Sebastian formerly studied at Design Academy Eindhoven in the Media and Culture Department. Additional non-institutional curricula include Organismo as a fellow at TBA21-Academy in Madrid; The People’s Forum in New York City; the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Berlin; and studies with Frente de Izquierda Unidad in Buenos Aires.



SELECTED EXHIBITIONS


His work has been shown in TBA21-Academy (Madrid), Dutch Design Week (Eindhoven), Museum de Fundatie (Zwolle), Design Museum Ghent (Ghent), Kazerne (Eindhoven), Bruxelles Environnement (Brussels), Guan Shanyue Art Museum (Shenzhen), and The Central House of Artists (Moscow), among other spaces.



EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMES


He has initiated programs, workshops, and lectures at Rietveld Academie/Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam), The Embassy of the Netherlands in Berlin, Design Academy Eindhoven (Eindhoven), Fontys University (Tilburg),  Fachhochschule Potsdam (Potsdam), HMC (Rotterdam), AKV St. Joost (’s-Hertogenbosch), and Floating University (Berlin).



SELECTED RECOGNITION


Contributor/researcher on projects that received: TBA21‑Academy/Ocean Archive Editor’s Pick 2025, S+T+ARTS Prize (Honorary Mention), Floriade Expo 2022 (Gold Award), and Henry van de Velde Award (Silver).



MAIL
INSTAGRAM

NOT AN APPLE THAT FALLS WHEN IT'S RIPE


"The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall." – Ernesto "Che" Guevara

The project will take shape primarily as a research and editorial endeavor. Building on my experience as a kitchen worker and my engagement in political education and organizing. Aiming to investigate how food mediates relationships among labor, territory, resources, and governance. Further focusing on food, operating both as a tool of systematic control and as an imperative for people's liberation—access to food is a critical signifier of socio-political stability.

2026, Amsterdam (Work-in-progress)
Food aid being denied by the IDF during the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

UNITY CHANTS FROM THE SOUTH


This research for OCEAN/UNI examines the large-scale mobilizations in Argentina in 2025 following Javier Milei's electoral victory. It analyzes how protest chanting serves as a crucial mechanism for working-class political expression and spontaneous organization. By revisiting historical traditions such as the ‘cacerolazos’, the article situates contemporary events within a broader history of resistance, including labor unions, anti-extractivist movements, and the ongoing struggle to advance democratic rights. The text argues that political chants not only articulate real political goals but also collectively reinforce Argentina’s national identity during periods of crisis.

Selected as the 2025 Editor’s Pick by TBA21-Academy/Ocean Archive.
2025, Buenos Aires/Madrid
OCEAN/UNI and ocean-archive.org

ORGA’

CULTURAL SECTOR SOLIDARITY AND RESISTANCE

A two-day public program at the Rietveld Pavilion began by recognizing that cultural work constitutes labor, work is work. Bringing together cultural workers, organizers, movement and union representatives, the program created a platform to address precarious employment, the pursuit of fair wages, unionization, its links to broader class international struggles, and solidarity. Through assemblies, lectures, and collective discussions, the initiative explored strategies for cultural workers to organize, facilitating exchange and supporting ongoing efforts toward collective action and labor rights.

Contributors: Alina Lupu, Arts of the Working Class, Cultural Worker Unite, Het ActieFonds, Kuntenbond, Oyuon Berlin (Louna Sbou), and Unidxs X La Cultura (Luca Bonfante).
2024, Amsterdam
Organized with Nina Blume. Supported by Sandberg Instituut’s Student Council. Photography by Nina Blume.

TAPPING WATER

Uncovering some of the complexities of the freshwater crisis through positioned (hi)stories enables more sensitive and relational ways of connecting local and larger struggles. Tapping Water holds space and invites dissident voices committed to critiquing resource commodification and mercantilism.

Water flows through all our aspects of life—our bodies, the food we depend on, the environment we live in, and the bodies we share it with. Through a constant circulation of intake, transformation, and exchange, we enact watery relations, often unconsciously. Water combines rest with resistance. The proposal seeks to create events that explore the various dimensions of water, from its environmental impact to its political and social dimensions.

Contributors: Celeste Fierro, Emmie Massias, Jessica Gentile, Jonathan Castro, Oscar van Leest, and Sara Frikech.

2023, Amsterdam
Organized with Nina Blume. Supported by Sandberg Instituut’s Student Council. Photography by Ilya Lindhout.

POSITIONED REALITIES


Plural conditions for change are knocking on our doors. How we position ourselves is instrumental to fostering other ways of being and sensing—away from a Western gaze that proclaims universality. While we actively embrace difference and the communal. Strategies for thinking about exits and alternatives beyond the modern/colonial order and its endless shortcomings.

Positioned Realities is a transnational assemblage of visual and spatial projects. Who operate within or between capital, class, race, gender, and land—navigating across places, bodies, and environmental dimensions. Reflecting, intervening, and delinking from dominant ideologies, frameworks, and continuities of Western historical reality.

2022, Berlin
Haus der Statistik. Visual identity by Can Yang.