Follow Laura on Instagram @lolabe
Laura Beltrán Villamizar is an independent curator, photography and art director, composer, and DJ from Bogotá, Colombia.
She's the director of photography for Atmos, shaping the brand's visual identity and elevating its visual storytelling in print and digital. She was previously senior art and photo editor for NPR.
In 2016, she founded NATIVE, an online platform that elevates the work of image makers from under-represented communities––Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the African diaspora.
As a DJ and electronic music composer, Laura is a vivid advocate for an inclusive industry and a safe dancefloor, setting up workshops for aspiring female and non-binary DJs around the globe. Her philosophy: dance music needs disruption, it needs poetry, it needs people who cannot afford it. Dance needs people of color, it needs riot girls and quirky queers.
She's passionate about color palettes, sound design, Japanese cinema, and spirituality.
Laura's based in Mexico City and lives with her puppy Aya.
In what ways does nature inspire or inform your work?
Nature’s rhythm and language inspire every bit of work that I do. The way nature creates shapes, repetition, and colors inspire the moods and sketches I put together for myself and other artists. Nature’s ability to persevere, to keep moving despite human abuse, inspires me to move forward, to keep going.
What does it mean to you to be part of a thriving ecosystem?
Being part of a thriving ecosystem means acting from a place of abundance, giving instead of taking away. We all have a role to play in the universe, we’re all interconnected, somehow, and what we do will eventually have an impact somewhere else and on someone else.
