María del Pilar Vergel is a Colombian academic and visual artist whose work is distinguished by an interdisciplinary approach integrating education, art, and cultural criticism. She holds a Ph.D. in Education from Universidad San Buenaventura in Cali, where her distinguished thesis focused on the concept of research in visual arts, prioritizing the perspectives of both students and teachers. This work sheds light on how research in the arts is understood and practiced within educational contexts. Additionally, she earned a Master’s degree in Education: Human Development from the same institution and an undergraduate degree in Plastic Arts from the Instituto Departamental de Bellas Artes in Cali.
In her professional career, María del Pilar Vergel has made significant contributions as a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali. She played a pivotal role in designing the Visual Arts program, overseeing its high-quality accreditation, and participating in curricular reform. Her efforts have been instrumental in shaping the educational landscape for new generations of artists.
Vergel’s scholarly and artistic interests are deeply rooted in decolonizing art education from the peripheries, where she believes new possibilities emerge that challenge dominant narratives and enrich artistic discourse. Her work critically engages with historical processes through archival research, aiming to uncover and make visible the trajectories of artists, curators, and art critics whose narratives have been overlooked or marginalized. Additionally, she explores representation, memory, and femininity themes, focusing on everyday female practices to highlight and analyze how these elements shape and reflect broader artistic and cultural discourses.
