top of page

About

IsabelCastroJung_foto1©NoelaRoibasBritEsMagazine_edited.png

Isabel Castro Jung is a German-Spanish visual artist and artist educator based in London, UK. She has exhibited internationally and her work focuses on immersive performance sculpture, participatory live art and creative workshops.

​

 

My work exists in the in-between — between cultures, bodies, roles, and places. Rooted in a multidisciplinary practice that spans performance, sculpture, film, photography, and drawing, I use creativity to navigate and articulate these fluid spaces. Informed by lived experience and my own background, I explore themes of migration, heritage, gender, and social hierarchies, and how they shape identity and belonging.

Central to my practice is the creation of performable sculptures that transform performers into hybrid beings within temporary shelters. Using materials such as textiles, rubber, ceramics, repurposed garments, and found objects, I craft bold, unconventional, and visually striking works imbued with poetry and beauty. These sculptural forms come alive through performance, becoming vehicles for transformation, experience, and learning.

For me, art is both transcendent and magical. My performances take the form of transformational rituals, using the body and sculpture to engage with emotional, intellectual, and spiritual questions. I aim to challenge audiences to reflect deeply on these themes while fostering imagination as a tool for recovery, connection, and joy.

Community and collaboration are fundamental to my process. I balance my personal practice with commissioned work for contemporary dance, theatre, and circus, and I engage in educational projects with children, adults, and individuals with special educational needs (SEN). I collaborate extensively with other visual artists, performers, choreographers, and musicians across Spain, Germany, and the UK.

In an era marked by fragmentation and collapse, I turn to art not just to endure, but to evolve — constructing spaces of belonging, resilience, and radical imagination.

​

Awards/Residencies

  • 2024–2025 | AA2A Artist Residency, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK

  • 2024 | Heritage Crafts Fund, Eaton Fund Grant

  • 2023–2024 | Newby Trust Studio Award, Cockpit Studios, Deptford, UK

  • 2023 | Project Grant for Covijo-99, Arts Council England

  • 2022–2023 | Studio Residency, Sarabande Foundation (Alexander McQueen), London, UK

  • 2022 | Shortlisted, Premi Manacor, Manacor, Spain

  • 2019 | London Creative Network Programme, SPACE Studios, London, UK

  • 2011 | Operare 2011 Production Grant, Berlin, Germany

  • 2008 | Rei en Jaume Art Award, Calvià, Spain

Exhibitions

2025

  • ‘Bending Reality’  creation with Nuadance (Neus Gil Cortés) funded by Arts Council England

  • Cybil-la co-creation with BAAL danza,supported by IEB, Ehrenfeld Studios (Cologne) y L’animal (Mal Pelo Celrà) y Canal de Salt,  Girona.

2024

  • Heart of the Nation, Migration Museum (touring: London, Leeds, Leicester), UK

2023

  • The Stillness of the Departing Light, Nunhead Cemetery, Nunhead Art Trail, London, UK

  • Safehouse Peckham, Peckham Festival, London, UK

  • SUM, Sarabande Foundation, London, UK

  • MYR Anemoi, performance, Sarabande Foundation, London, UK

  • Tangle Teaser, WAAW Festival, Sarabande Foundation, London, UK

2022

  • The Animal Conference, Villa Merkel, Esslingen, Germany

  • Soft Façade, Gerald Moore Gallery, London, UK

  • Emerging from the Rubble, Staffordshire St. Gallery, London, UK

2021

  • Bow Open, Nunnery Gallery, London, UK

  • Superposition, South Bermondsey Art Trail, Staffordshire St. Gallery, London, UK

  • The Sad-Eyed Chameleon, Volcano Grey, London Gallery Weekend, Staffordshire St. Gallery, London, UK

2020

  • Ein Museum auf Probe, Villa Merkel, Esslingen, Germany

  • Camberwell Arts Festival, London, UK

Penelope Project, LSE Women’s Library, London School of Economics, UK

2019

  • Performance Marathon at SPACE Studios
    Gallery, London, UK

  • London Open Studios Peckham, London, UK


2018

  • ‘Penelope Project’ (R&D, workshops, installation) GLYPT, London, UK

​

2017 

  • Brixton Design Trail/London Design Festival, UK

 

2016 

  • ‘Face Value: A reflection oncontemporary portraiture’, Collyer & Bristow, curated by Kathleen Soriano, London, UK

2015

  • ‘Spain Now!’ Art Festival, Hospital Club, London, UK

  • Freedom Audit ́ at Art15 Art Fair, London, UK

  • ​

2012 

  • Drawing & Objects, Palmyra Sculpture Centre, Palma, Spain

2011

  • ‘Isabel Castro Jung: Anemoi’, ABA art gallery, Palma, Spain

  • ‘Wishgarden’, Pilari Joan Miró Foundation, Palma, Spain.

  • Photo Palma 2011, sculpture & film, GalleryPelaires, Palma, Spain

  • ‘Ankunft Neue Musik’, Contemporary Opera Berlin, Germany

2010

  • ‘Fira de teatre de Tàrrega’, Cataluña, Spain

  • Festival ‘Corpus Media’, Toulouse, France

2009

  • ‘Watermarks’ collective ‘NSDM’. Amsterdam, Holland

Work in collections

  • Sarabande Foundation

  • Sonia Afzal

  • Council of Calvià,

  • Pedro Pasqual,

  • Kathleen Soriano,

  • Michael Horbach Foundation

  • Helen & Colin David,

  • Sue & Clive Hollick

  • Other private collectors.

Publications & Features

Brit Es Magazine, #dream 0

 

Workshops, Lectures & Outreach
​

  • 2025 | Visiting Lecturer, Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), Cambridge, UK

  • 2024 | Visiting Lecturer, University of the Arts London (UAL), UK

  • 2024 | Guest Artist, British Library (Earth Day)

  • 2023–2024 | Workshop Leader, Heart of the Nation, Migration Museum, UK

  • 2024 | TreeHouse Residency Project (Autism school)

2018–2022 | Penelope Project (GLYPT, Clean Break, LSE), London, UK

Education

  • 1999–2001 | Art and New Technologies, Escola Massana, Barcelona, Spain

  • 1995–1999 | Fine Arts (Sculpture, Performance with Prof. Joan Jonas), University of Fine Arts, Stuttgart, Germany

  • 1993–1995 | Diploma: Apprenticeship in Stonemasonry and Stone Sculpture, Stuttgart, Germany

Costumes, props and design

 

2024/25

  • 'Bending Reality' Nuadance

  • 'Cybil.la' Baal dance

 

2018

  •   ́Sirene ́(working title),  ́a nightat the circus ́, Fauve Alice and Spare Tire production, London.

  • 'Quimera' Nuadance


2107 

' Walk into space ́, orbits project, IJAD dance company, FACT Liverpool.


2015/16

  ́The Loneliness Street Cabaret ́, The Beautiful Mess
Company, London, UK.


2014 

́The 3 Scavengers, The Beautiful Mess Company, London.

2012

“L ́Amour fou”, Kristóf Szabo,Cologne, Germany.
 

bottom of page