Daniel Bustos Echeverry

b. 1990, Bogotá, Colombia
Lives and works in Bogotá

I'm a researcher and cultural producer interested in the relationship between the Caribbean, the Andes and the Amazon. I work across academic, music, documentary, and curatorial fields, often combining these within a single project. My experience is anchored in extensive academic research, and combines ethnography with my work with communities, the creation of interdisciplinary groups and supporting private and public, national and international networks to ensure the project's impact. Much of my work focuses on recovering and preserving the cultural legacy of under-represented communities. In 2017, I led a creative project to recover the music of Magín Díaz, a 95-year-old bullerengue composer. The resulting album won a Grammy Award, a Latin Grammy, and an Independent Music Award. I have since written Magín Díaz's biography for the Ministry of Culture in Colombia. In 2018 I produced the short documentary film 'They're Killing Us' that allowed us to advocate locally, nationally and internationally for protecting human rights and the lives of threatened social leaders in Colombia. It was screened to the US Congress, The United Nations in Geneva, Cinema Política in Montreal, as well as in community and grassroots settings after a viral open-source release. Between 2019-2021 I was an advisor for the Presidency of the Republic of Colombia and coordinated public policy strategies for youth inclusion. In 2021-2022, I was the first recipient of the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology Studentship to do a MA in Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester, UK. I hold a Specialization in Southern Epistemologies and a BA in Philosophy. I have given lectures in the United States, Canada, Germany, the UK, Senegal, Colombia, Argentina and Bolivia. I am researching alternative histories through the memories and the paintings of self-taught artists in Colombia's Caribbean, making a vinyl on Latin music, and working as an Impact Producer on a film about coca, ayahuasca, indigenous communities and the Amazon Basin.

Curriculum vitae

Mark