Photograph by Ben Reyes. Valencia, Spain. October 2011.
He graduated from Rollins College with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Philosophy and Religious Studies, cum laude.
His artistic and experimental multimedia work has been featured - or is forthcoming - via the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) through the digital publication: Proyecto Mission Murals, as well as by Wolf at the Door, Al Jazeera, Doha Debates, CiNEOLA, on-off.site, Orlando Sentinel, Brushing Art and Literary Journal, Revista Innombrable, Rollins College’s The Independent, Revista Cultural Días Temáticos, Poets Reading the News, and Biomimicry Institute’s AskNature, Skybound Entertainment, Audible, San Francisco ShortFest, Santa Monica Film Fest, LA Independent Shorts, San Francisco Independent Film Festival, True/False Film Fest, and Tribeca Audio, among others.
His self-published proetry has also been published in Entombed: A proem in five stages and Ontologies: Ten Proems. His work has been read and selected to be performed for an audience at the SFMOMA, Play On Words, Speaking Axolotl, Beast Crawl Lit Fest, the San José Museum of Art, LITEROCALYPSE, San Francisco Foundation, Nomadic Press, and The Emperor’s New Prose, among others.
As an Artist-In-Residence, his projects have been supported by Elsewhere Studios, in Paonia, Colorado, and showcased by the digital collective on-off.site. He was a managing editor for Poets Reading the News. In 2021, he was awarded one of the inaugural San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press literary awards for poetry. In 2023, he and his multidisciplinary team were awarded the Bronze for the inaugural Signal Awards on the Individual Episode (Arts & Culture) category for “The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine - Volume I,” which he directed. A project he was a creative producer for was awarded the Tribeca 2023 Fiction Audio Storytelling Award.
When he writes, he creates prose that aspires to be poetry and poetry that has the flow of prose. His writing explores those paths that delve deeper into what are dense levels of language, comparative literature, always infused with references, and with a focus on a primacy of meaning. Some of the topics that he is interested in often appear in his pieces, such as semiotics, philosophies, and religions.
Artist Timeline
2024 JUNIOR TU PAPÁ, a documentary short film that Camilo co-wrote with writer and director Daniel Díaz had its world premiere at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri. He also co-produced, story edited, sound designed with Daniel Freeman, and did sound engineering and re-recording mixing for the film.
2024 ‘The Rights of Nature’ the experimental and speculative non-fiction episode that Camilo worked on from Necessary Tomorrows is released.
2023 The Very Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen, an audio drama in nine parts, is released.
2023 The Very Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen and its creator, Alex Kemp, were awarded the Tribeca 2023 Fiction Audio Storytelling Award. Camilo worked with Alex Kemp as a creative producer on the project.
2023 The Very Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen was recognized as one of the sixteen Tribeca Audio 2023 "Official Selects." Camilo worked with Alex Kemp as a creative producer on the project.
2023 Necessary Tomorrows was recognized as one of the sixteen Tribeca Audio 2023 "Official Selects." Camilo was a story editor, sound designer, and contributing writer for the project.
2023 Camilo was announced as the non-fiction judge for the 2023 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Awards.
2023 An experimental, non-fiction, multimedia essay about home created by Camilo – that introduces a set of biological strategies – was published by the Biomimicry Institute’s AskNature.
2023 “The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine - Volume I” was awarded the Bronze for the inaugural Signal Awards on the Individual Episode (Arts & Culture) category.
2022 “The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine - Volume I” was nominated to the inaugural Signal Awards on the Individual Episode (Arts & Culture) category.
2022 Camilo directed his team, performed and read some of his poetry, and introduced and concluded the first live performance of “The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine - Volume I” at SFMOMA’s The Art of Murals symposium.
2022 Camilo was the consulting producer, one of the sound recordists, and one of the main interviewers for the award-winning short-documentary film Las Muralistas: Our Walls, Our Stories.
2022 Camilo directed and hosted the first listening session of “The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine - Volume I” at SFMOMA for the Free Community Day: Diego Rivera’s America.
2022 “The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine - Volume I” was a 2022 Webby Award nominee on the Podcasts — Individual Episodes, Arts & Culture category.
2022 Camilo wrote a blog entry about his experiences at Elsewhere Studios while developing and writing his debut novel.
2022 An outtake from the larger “The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine - Volume I” – titled ‘Ode to La 24’ – was recognized as one of the thirty On Air Fest 2022 "Official Selects."
2022 Performed and read a short excerpt from one of the sections of his novel at Elsewhere Studios’s artist showcase: "Looking For a Sign: Open Studio and Readings," on February 25, 2022.
2022 Became an artist-in-residence at Elsewhere Studios, in Paonia, Colorado, and continued work on his debut novel.
2021 An abridged version of Camilo’s ‘Entombed’ was read at the celebration event for the 2021 San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Awards.
2021 Camilo directed and led the team behind the creation of an experimental audio collection for the Proyecto Mission Murals titled “The Mission Muralismo Audio Zine - Volume I” in which local Bay Area writers Olivia Peña and Josiah Luis Alderete interweave their perspectives on the history of the Mission Muralismo movement with stories from the muralists themselves.
2021 30 people from 3 continents and from 23 locations ended up participating and co-creating Camilo’s artistic project at on-off.site, titled “Pandæmonium.” More context on that, here.
2021 Read a poem titled “Palimpsestic Pentimento,” for Speaking Axolotl’s session during the San Francisco Bay Area’s Beast Crawl Lit Fest 2021.
2021 Left his role as managing editor for Poets Reading the News.
2021 ‘A Carpenter With a Hammer,’ a poem in memory of Sean Monterrosa, was published in Poets Reading the News.
2021 ‘La imaginación criminal’, fue publicado en la Revista Innombrable.
2021 ‘A Carpenter With a Hammer,’ was performed by City Lights Theater Company's Ivette Deltoro at "Our Stories, Ourselves," organized by the San José Museum of Art and Play On Words.
2021 Published an essay in the Orlando Sentinel about the movie "My Neighbor Totoro" and how its depiction of a mother recovering from an undisclosed illness was a comfort to him as his own family dealt with COVID-19.
2021 Became the artist-in-residence at Bay Area digital collective, on-off.site, to co-create an interactive, serialized proem titled “Pandæmonium,” that invites public participation and dialogue to co-create a space that is truly built collectively. More about the project can be found here.
2021 ‘Oikos,’ is published in the 2020-2021 edition of Brushing Art and Literary Journal.
2021 Was awarded one of the ten inaugural San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Awards in poetry for an edited and abridged version of his ‘Entombed.’
2021 Became a managing editor for Poets Reading the News.
2021 Ideated and helped facilitate the collaboration event between on-off.site and Poets Reading the News: “Catharsis: An Inauguration Poetry Reading.”
2020 Became an associate poetry editor for Poets Reading the News.
2020 Initiated “Pandæmonium,” a nineteen parts proem.
2020 Moved back stateside to the San Francisco Bay Area.
2019 Moved to Madrid, Spain. Started work on a novel.
2017 Became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
2016 Wrote and published a crónica about Sasha Sokolov’s A School for Fools, and its English translation by Alexander Boguslawski at the Revista Cultural Días Temáticos.
2016 Moved to Washington, D.C.
2015 Read an abridged version of “Entombed,” to the audience of Orlando’s LITEROCALYPSE.
2015 Wrote and self-published Ontologies: Ten Proems.
2015 Wrote and self-published Entombed: A proem in five stages
2015 Graduated from Rollins College with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Philosophy and Religious Studies, Cum Laude.
2015 ‘EL MOCHILERO (Notas de una recolección latina),’ is published in the first volume of the second edition of Rollins College’s The Independent. It also gets added to a time capsule in Winter Park, FL.
2014 ‘Ouroboros,’ is published in the second volume of the first edition of Rollins College’s The Independent.
2014 Read ‘Direction and Destination,’ some anecdotes, and an excerpt of Sasha Sokolov’s Palisandriia to the audience of The Emperor’s New Prose.
2014 Read a couple of proems – ‘Noche en vela’ and ‘Rasa de Zoe’ – to the audience of Orlando’s LITEROCALYPSE.
2012 Researched Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevskiĭ and madness and wrote a project, titled: "Confessions from Madness."
2012 Began classes at Rollins College and was awarded a Presidential Award Scholarship.
2011 Moved to the United States of America.
1993 Born in Bogotá, Colombia.
Follow Camilo through his social media accounts:
The first image is of Camilo holding pages from his “Pandæmonium,” as we see its thirteenth part, courtesy of on-off.site and taken by Stephanie Smith. Bottom photo is courtesy of Camilo Garzón.