Maria Elisa Pinto-Garcia lives in the intersection of creativity, art and peacebuilding. Being both a professional in government and international relations, and a singer and composer, art-based peacebuilding approaches have been at the core of her work and publications since 2008. Through the most important start-up competition in Colombia, she created in 2013 the new vision of Prolongar Foundation which since then has been one of the leading NGOs in the country in art-based strategies for peacebuilding. As the Executive Director of the organization from 2013 to 2022, she co-designed and delivered more than 20 creative projects including mobile museums, community murals, podcasts, and video projects to advance a culture of peace and raise awareness around violence and Human Rights violations in Colombia reaching 15.000+ people. She has designed and facilitated spaces for capacity building and community engagement for a variety of groups including conflict-affected victims and communities, guerrilla ex-combatants, veterans of war, campesinos, entrepreneurs and educators, reaching around 1000 people directly. Maria Elisa earned a Master’s Degree in Global Studies, with emphasis in Peace and Conflict Studies, from the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies for which she received a full scholarship from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). She has written a total of ten publications, including books and scholarly articles about art-based peacebuilding approaches. Currently, she is the Operations Lead of Reimagine Peacebuilding, a translocal community of 25 peacebuilders and activists around the world seeking to explore alternative futures for peace to build new systems. She is also the project manager and production coordinator of the award-wining Documentary INDIVISIBLES, the host of the podcast Encuentros Improbables (Unlikely Encounters in English), and the singer and composer of the Sonajero band.

Participant in: August 2023 Fellowship: The Arts as a Tool for Peacebuilding