Scout Cartagena

Scout Cartagena (b. 1993, Maryland) is a multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Chicago, IL. Their work explores disability, grief in the body, and medical trauma through the lens of their experience as an Afro-Latine, queer, disabled person living with an autoimmune disease. Cartagena approaches the body as both a stranger and an heirloom—an unpredictable vessel of pain and flare-ups, and a site of memory, survival, and intergenerational care. Their practice considers the fragility shared by bodies, objects, and familiar forms, tracing how illness reshapes intimacy, labor, and inheritance.


Cartagena earned an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2025 and a BFA in Glass with public educator certification from Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia. They have held a solo exhibition at The Da Vinci Art Alliance (Philadelphia) and participated in group exhibitions at the OH Art Foundation (Chicago), Kemerer Museum of Decorative Arts, International Print Center New York, The Delaware Contemporary, and the Hunterdon Art Museum. Cartagena is also the founder of Break Free Fest, an annual Philadelphia-based music festival centered on POC in punk and hardcore that has been active for over eight years.