JUAN DIAZ BOHORQUEZ
Juan Diaz Bohorquez is a film director, narrative artist and writer, working on subjects such as counter-narratives, colonialism, new heroines, techno-shamanism and indigenous mythologies. His projects merge intimate documentation and research, with fictional and metaphysical elements. His practice is driven by a non-linear, multi-disciplinary approach, to create intimate narratives that emerge from holistic worlds. He has developed a new Narrative Design System that has evolved from his Ecosystemic Storytelling world building practice and his theory of Emergent Imagination. His theory and practice have coevolved, continuously shaping each other over time.
WE MAKE SENSE OF REALITY THROUGH STORIES
•
WE MAKE SENSE OF REALITY THROUGH STORIES •
PROJECTS
Juan Diaz Bohorquez is currently preparing his elevated horror feature film ›Ride the Darkness‹, that combines a family story of women of 4 generations and the darkest manifestations of trauma. His latest short film ›Way‹, a journey about memory and family bonds, is currently in post-production.
He collaborated with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, as art director, concept designer and vfx supervisor for Weerasethakul film ›Memoria‹, winner of the Jury Award in Cannes 2021. In 2022 Diaz Bohorquez was commissioned by the MIT in Boston, to conceive and direct the XR-AI installation ›The Riddler’s Garden‹. The same year he won the prestigious french CNC writing grant for his XR project ›Terra‹. In 2024 and 2025 Deichtorhallen Hamburg commissioned him to develop two eleven-meter large installations, mapping current visual cultures of disinformation tactics, as part of the exhibition series “Viral Hallucinations”
During the 2020 quarantine Diaz Bohorquez co-created, conceptualised and designed ›Decameron Row‹, an experiment in community inspired by Boccaccio, inviting 100 artist from around the world to contribute video pieces, hosted in a virtual neighbourhood, featured in the New York Times and Deutschlandfunkkultur. In 2018 he was transmedia designer and producer of ›We are the Heat‹, a new urban beat film premiering at the Warsaw International Film Festival.
In 2007 he was invited to the Berlinale Talents and won the Berlin Today Award production grant 2009, for his film ›By Night‹, a love story between dimensions he wrote and directed, premiered in Berlinale and Fantastic Fest 2010. In 2008 Diaz Bohorquez was the writer and production designer of ›RojoRed‹, a mix-techniques short film screened in more than a 100 festivals and winner of multiple awards.
His photographic work earned him the prestigious Fernando Botero Jury Prize, and has exhibited in Berlin, Boston, Bogota, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Barcelona and Hamburg.
WORLD-BUILDING
EMERGENT IMAGINATION
& ECOSYSTEMIC STORYTELLING
Juan Diaz Bohorquez is the European Director of the World Building Institute, a non profit research unit and transdisciplinary network. In parallel to his artistic practice, he has pioneered the research and development of innovative narrative design and world-building methodologies alongside acclaimed production designer Alex McDowell (›Fight Club‹, ›Minority Report‹), director of the WBI in Los Angeles. Their method combines deep research with poetic evocation, to create intimate narratives that emerge from holistic worlds, that has been applied to develop and produce films, entertainment projects, social impact projects and science-art collaborations.
Over the past two decades, Diaz Bohorquez has developed a new Narrative Design System that has evolved from his Ecosystemic Storytelling world building practice and his theory of Emergent Imagination. His theory and practice have coevolved, continuously shaping each other over time.
In 2018 he was invited by the UNDP to the Future of Cities Summit in Venice, to rethink Cities through world building and narrative and is building up a collaboration with them to develop narrative project in different cities. He is also part of the Guild of Future Architects. As part of the Guild he was mentor to teams in Lima and the Netherlands for the Rockefeller Foundation Food Systems Vision Prize.
EVENTS & COLLABORATIONS
Since 2009 has co-curated the World-Building and Production Design Studio, a joint effort between WBI and the Berlinale Talents of the Berlin International Film Festival. Each of the 14 editions of the Studio at Berlinale, has centered on a different pressing subject including: Play as Process (2011), Water Stories (2015) on the water crisis and its societal impacts, Migratory Narratives (2016), on migration and new settlements, Surveillance and Spectacle (2017) investigating the balance of power in a surveillance state, Alternative Histories of Our Future (2019), Narratives of Control (2020), The Limits of Comprehension (2024) and Alternative Realities (2025) diving on different aspects on how stories shaped reality.
He has been invited as speaker and mentor at Deichtorhallen, FMX, the VRSci fest, the EAVE program, the Animation Workshop, ESCAC among others.
Partners
Get in touch