Isa Fontbona

Corporeal Cartographies of Vulnerability by Isa Fontbona Mola, 2021, photo by Albert Collado

Girona, Spain

Isa Fontbona (1987) is a Ph.D. researcher, natural bodybuilder competitor, and a performance  artist. Fontbona holds two Bachelor’s Degrees, in Philosophy and Art History, as well as a Master’s  Degree in Humanity Research at the University of Girona, Spain. Currently, she is completing her  dissertation on the artistic and gendered interventions enabled by female and trans bodybuilding  practices. This project, more than a research, brought her to introduce herself to the performance  art sphere. 

Her artistic work merges different approaches into the same coin: her research and her sports  career. She explores the malleability of the body through her own skin, using bodybuilding as a tool.  Through this corporeal practice, she questions the binary categorization regarding gender  distinction, and the social pressure exerted on the expectations of the bodies. In some of her  artworks, she challenges herself to the limits of the endurance of her body. She tends to ask about  her own identity in relation to her body through uncomfortable positions.