Marta de Menezes

Director

Marta de Menezes (born 1975) is a Portuguese artist, with a Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Lisbon and a MSt from the University of Oxford. De Menezes is director of Cultivamos Cultura, the leading institution devoted to experimental art in Portugal and Ectopia, dedicated to facilitate the collaborative work between artists and scientists. Marta de Menezes has worked in the intersection of art and biology since the late 90s, in the UK, Australia, the Netherlands, and Portugal, exploring the conceptual and aesthetic opportunities offered by biological sciences for visual representation in the arts.

Her work has been widely exhibited in major venues in all continents, presented in most anthologies devoted to bioart, discussed in doctoral dissertations, and considered an example of research in the visual arts. Among the most recent international exhibitions, de Menezes was invited for the 2019 Ars Electronica Festival: Out of the Box, and organized two 2020 Ars Electronica Gardens (Lisbon and São Luis). She was invited to be the official representation of Portugal at the London Design Biennale 2016 and exhibited at the Beijing Biennale of New Media Art 2016. De Menezes was nominated in 2015 by Time and Fortune magazines for the Art and Technology Awards 2015. Besides her work as artist, de Menezes curated major international exhibitions including for European Capital of Culture (Portugal), Kontejner Festival (Zagreb), Verbeke Foundation (Belgium) and this last three years the editions of FACTT – Transnational and Transdisciplinary Festival of Art and Science that took place in Lisbon, New York, Mexico City, Berlin and Toronto.

Maria Manuela Lopes

Deputy director

Maria Manuela Lopes is a visual artist whose practice is transdisciplinary, investigating relations of memory and identity informed by the biological sciences and medical research; her work appears in a varied format within the visual arts resulting in multimedia installations, drawings and performances – occasionally including biological materials. Maria Manuela Lopes studied sculpture at FBA-UP and did an MA at Goldsmiths College in London. She has a Doctorate in Fine Arts and New Media at the University of Brighton and UCA-Farnham in the UK. She has developed a Postdoctoral Art Research Project at the University of Aveiro and Porto (ID + Institute of Research in Design, Media and Culture) and i3S Institute of Research and Innovation in Health. She is currently a researcher at i3S Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde  as co-responsible for the Cultural Outreach Art/Science interface of the Institution. She has curated several international exhibitions namely: Matter Thought Time Shape (2018); EmMeio # 9. FBA-UP Museum (2017); Look and Experience: Interference in the Archive, Museum of Penafiel (2017); Enhancement: MAKING SENSE, I3S (2016); Matter and Media of the Invisible: Archeology of Memory, Museum of Penafiel (2016); EmMeio # 7.0, Museum of the City of Aveiro, House of Captaincy, Museum of New Art, Aveiro (2015). She is the author of articles and book chapters in several national and international publications (as well as invited as a speaker), further Her work has been shown nationally and internationally since the 90’s. Maria Manuela Lopes is also co-founder and Deputy Director of Portuguese artistic residency programs: Ectopia – Laboratory of Artistic Experimentation (initially at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science, now operating within various institutions) and Cultivamos Cultura, artistic residency program and research in visual arts in São Luís, Odemira.

Cláudia Figueiredo

Creative Producer

Claudia Figueiredo is a Portuguese producer with a degree in architecture by Universidade Lusiada and a post graduation in Events Marketing and Production. Between 1998 and 2006 was assistant producer of different bands such as 16HP, Soulwax, dEUS and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Since 2007 became executive producer for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Grinderman and Nick Cave solo performances. From 2011 to 2012 worked as executive producer for the theatre director João Garcia Miguel in Lisbon.

During this period was executive producer for the company’s European project “Islotes en Red”, with the show “As Barcas” which premiered at Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture. Claudia was also involved in preparing the company participation in Marseille 2013 European Capital of Culture. Claudia has also been promoter representative for the Portuguese shows of Hugh Laurie, Bombino and Yann Tiersen among others. Since 2013 she is executive producer for Cultivamos Cultura, an organization focused on experimental practices in visual arts, producing artistic residencies, exhibitions and an outdoor cinema cycle in S. Luís, Odemira, as well as international visual arts exhibitions.visuais.

Luís Graça

Science Consultant

Luis Graca has an MD from the University of Lisbon, Portugal; and a PhD in transplant immunology from the University of Oxford, UK. He developed his post-doctoral research first in Oxford and later at the Institute for Child Health Research, in Perth, Australia. He is currently Associate Professor at the Lisbon Medical School, directing a research group in cellular immunology at Instituto de Medicina Molecular.

His most significant scientific contributions have been related with the development of strategies to teach the immune system not to reject transplanted organs, also known as immune tolerance. Currently he is extending his findings to the fields of allergy and autoimmunity (where the immune system attacks its own body). Luis Graca is author of 52 research publications, three patents, and co-founder of Acellera Therapeutics. Besides his scientific research he has been interested in the intersection between art and science. In this field Luis Graca has collaborated with several artists, including a long-term relationship with Marta de Menezes (www.martademenezes.com) and he is now scientific advisor for Ectopia and Cultivamos Cultura (www.cultivamoscultura.org) – two Portuguese institutions involved in fostering art-science collaborations. He has three publications in this field, describing the scietist’s view of art-science interactions.
http://www.imm.fm.ul.pt/web/imm/cellularimmunology

Diana Aires

Cultural and Artistic Mediator

Diana Mordido Aires is a Portuguese artist and artistic and cultural mediator. Her interest in fine arts led her to specialize in Jewellery at António Arroio Artistic School, to study Painting at Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, and to graduate in Artistic and Cultural Mediation at the Lisbon Superior School of Education. The focus of her work has been growing on dialogue and public involvement in artistic production, while collaborating with different entities – Atelier Concorde, Casa das Histórias Paula Rego, Cultivamos Cultura and Centro de Arte e Cultura| Fundação Eugénio de Almeida – in which contemporary art assumes itself as an interactive field, allowing her to produce new discourses, dynamics and activities that aim to bring closer the artworks to the public. She is a co-funder of Portuguese Association of Artistic and Cultural Mediation, and currently works with Cultivamos Cultura where she is creating educational projects and is responsible for the archive.

Anna Isaak-Ross

Archive, Residency and Studio Manager

Anna Isaak-Ross holds a BFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. After working with artists at Amorphic Robot Works in New York City, Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass, Colorado, and as an intern to Juan Quezada in Mata Ortiz, Mexico, she became the Studio Manager of the Art & Design Department at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. While there, Anna managed the traditional art studios and fabrication lab activities. She has extensive experience with curatorial work, bringing major exhibitions to University Crossing Gallery as well as galleries in Portugal and Spain. At present, Anna lives in São Luis, Portugal, as the Studio Manager and Coordinator at Cultivamos Cultura.  Her work on site involves archiving the art collection as well as managing the residency programming. Her expertise is managing lab equipment, art studios, facilities and galleries. She excels at curatorial practices used to present and preserve many types of artwork.

As an artist, Anna’s primary medium is photography and new media. Her photos and films have been exhibited internationally. Her work reveals the natural world by using her personal physical form as a conduit for exploration. Many of her self-portraits explore an archetypal understanding of self in tamed, ruined as well as wild landscapes. Carving out identities with light and shadow, she invites viewers out of reality and into a fable-like arc of their choosing.

Sally Santiago

Artistic Projects Communication Manager

Sally Santiago is a Brazilian artist and researcher living in Porto/Portugal. Using video, installation, and photography to elevate the movements of existence to a conscious surface, the artist presents reflections on the nature of life and art itself. By engaging in dialogues about the body and space – their relationship and inhabitation – their experiments traverse the realms of art and philosophy, intertwining to reveal immaterial reflections between human existence and its connection with the world around them. She is part of the PhD program in Fine Arts at FBAUP and holds a master’s degree in contemporary artistic creation (UA/PT) and a bachelor’s degree in social communication (UAM/ BR). Since 2021 she has been part of the team of the cultural institutions Cultivamos Cultura and Ectopia Laboratório de Arte Experimental. Before that, in 2020, she collaborated with the Centre of Contemporary Art in Christchurch (NZ).

Nuno Sousa

3D Digital Transitioning Researcher & Executive Producer

Nuno Sousa is a multimedia student, with a degree in production of interactive content and multimedia, entered the erasmus program where he studied cinema on the Krzysztof Kieslowki Faculty of Radio and Television. His specialization is the modeling and rendering of 3d content, mainly interested in ceramic pieces and portraying people, moments or experiences in digital media. Over time he has collaborated in several projects predominantly as a Photogrametry freelancer, he is now starting a master’s degree in contemporary art.

Flávio Saldanha

Photographer & Cinematographer

Flávio Saldanha is a Photographer and Videographer who completed his studies in Photography at Ar.Co – Centro de arte e Comunicação Visual and later Cinema, Directing and Television at EticAlgarve, with an internship at BenficaTV where he was a cameraman. Most of his work focuses on promoting local businesses such as restaurants, surf schools and accommodation, giving them greater visibility and personal pleasure to be part of the local growth. With participation in some other projects in the region, this time Flavio embraces the CultivamosCultura project.