Elyla (Chontales, 1989) is a performance artist and activist from Central America, Nicaragua. Their work deals with creating resistance to colonial, imperialist, and western ideologies around the construction of identity politics and nation-state cultural narratives, specifically as it relates to mestizaje, queerness (cochoneidad), and indigenous ancestry. Elyla has presented their work at the IX/X Biennial of Nicaragua, IX/X Central American Biennials, and the XII Biennial of Havana, Cuba and will be part of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

Elyla is committed to research how decolonial reflections can lead to a community based anti-colonial artistic praxis in Central America. The artist coined the term barro-mestiza to take distance from the traditional and colonial understanding of mestizaje during their ongoing process of decolonization. Elyla is an Artist Protection Fund Fellow by the Institute of International Education (IIE) at Bucknell University supported by the Samek Art Museum and 2020 EmergenNYC Fellow. They are a 2021 Seed Awardee and currently part of the 2024 Moving Narratives Mentorship Award Cohort by the Prince Claus Fund.

The artist’s early work dealt with contesting the patriarchal and repressive narratives upheld by the Latin American left and its effect on gender and sexually diverse people. In 2013, Elyla co-founded the Operación Queer/Cochona collective that blurred the limits between academia, art, and activism creating interventions in Mesoamerica. Their project Machete Dress was a grant recipient of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) 16th annual Grants & Commissions Program. Their work is part of the permanent collection at the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, the Ortiz-Gurdian Art Foundation, KADIST videoart collection and private collectors around the world. Their work has been shown through-out Latin America, North America, Canada, Europe, Asia. They currently live and work in Masaya, Nicaragua.