João Castilho (Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil, 1978) lives and works in Belo Horizonte. His practice engages with expanded photography. The photographic—as a mode of artistic thinking—takes the form of series, photo-installations, collages, videos, sculptures and curatorial projects. He holds a PhD and an MA in Arts from UFMG, as well as a specialization in Fine Arts and Contemporaneity from Escola Guignard.
A driving force in his practice is the desire to think the Earth in its multiplicity, disrupting scales and interweaving temporalities. Castilho creates works of near-fiction that seek to give aesthetic form to our belonging to the world. His research includes what he calls a "geology of color": the pursuit of similar tonalities from different perspectives, generating blocks of chromatic intensity that decompose and recompose the images' strata.
In Castilho's work, photography operates as a means of investigating how images reveal layers of time, territory and perception. His series engage with literature and philosophy and are often organized as photobooks, which he treats as autonomous works. He has published Zoo (2017), Hotel Tropical (2013), Pulsão Escópica (2012), Peso Morto (2010) and Paisagem Submersa (Cosac Naify, 2008).
Castilho has held four solo exhibitions at Zipper Galeria: Chão em Chamas (2017), Porcelana e Vulcão (2015), Caos-Mundo (2013) and Hotel Tropical (2011).
He has also presented Atmosfera at Memorial Minas Gerais Vale (Belo Horizonte, 2024); Paisagem Submersa at Galeria Luisa Strina (São Paulo, 2008); and Zoo at Image Festival Amman (Jordan, 2019). His group exhibitions include Second Nature: Photography in the Age of the Anthropocene, presented at the Anchorage Museum (2026), Cantor Arts Center / Stanford University (2025) and Nasher Museum of Art (Durham, 2024); Eloge du Vertige at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris, 2012); and Mythologies at Shiseido Gallery (Tokyo, 2012). He also participated in the 10th Mercosul Biennial (2015), 8th Curitiba International Biennial (2013), 19th SESC_Videobrasil Festival of Contemporary Art (2015) and 1st MASP FotoBienal (2013).
Among other distinctions, he has received the Prêmio SESC de Arte (2025), the ZUM/IMS Photography Grant (2013), the Prêmio Funarte Marc Ferrez de Fotografia (2010), the Prêmio Fundação Conrado Wessel de Arte (2008 and 2014), the Musée du Quai Branly's Prix Pour La Photographie, and the Bolsa Pampulha (2006). He was an artist in residence at Les Résidences de Photoquai, Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, 2011), and at Centre Soleil d'Afrique (Bamako, Mali, 2007).
His work is held in collections including the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, MAM-SP, MASP (Coleção Pirelli), Instituto Moreira Salles, MAR, Musée du Quai Branly, Museu Mineiro, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, MAMAM (Recife) and Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Liège, among others.