Javier Barrios is a Guatemalan-Norwegian artist whose multidisciplinary practice fuses drawing, sculpture, and installation to explore humanity’s complex relationship with nature, cultural identity, and violence. His works feature anthropomorphic flora, skeletal figures, and hybrid mythologies, drawing inspiration from colonial botany, Aztec rituals, and global iconography. Through pieces like Offerings to the Nocturnal Hours and Casa de Sombras, Barrios critiques ecological destruction and celebrates syncretic cultural memory, positioning art as a lens through which we reimagine both past and future

The sound installation Culture Walk, presented at Arendalsuka 2025 by Bjørn Askefoss and Munken Kulturhus, is a powerful exploration of cultural identity and artistic freedom. Featuring contributions from 48 global voices, the 92-minute multichannel composition challenges conventional cultural narratives and redefines sound art as a political and social dialogue