Paula Nishijima
Born in São Paulo, Brazil, 1987
Lives and works in Amsterdam (NL) and São Paulo (BR)
EDUCATION
2018-2019
MA in Arts & Culture (cum laude)
Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands
2005-2010
BA in Visual Arts
Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, São Paulo, Brazil
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2024 Synthetic Symbiotic Tournament, solo exhibition, Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània, Valencia, Spain
2024 In Touch – How to Connect in the Age of Digital Humanity?, IMPAKT, Utrecht, Netherlands
2024 Decentralized Futures, ETOPIA Center for Art and Technology, Zaragoza, Spain
2024 Decentralized Futures, curated by Baltan Laboratories, Dutch Design Week, Koelhuis Eindhoven, Netherlands
2024 Kind Relations II, Antre Peaux Centre d’art contemporain, Bourges, France
2023 Living Systems – Concepts of Natural and Artificial Otherness in Collective Habitats, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, Croatia
2023 RIXC Art and Science Festival – CRYPTO, ART AND CLIMATE, curated by Rasa Šmite and Raitis Šmits, National Library of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
2023 20th Media Art Biennale WRO 2023, Fungible Content, Wroclaw, Poland
2022 Plug-in Habitat in collaboration with Biomimetic Laboratory, solo exhibition, LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón, Spain
2022 Kin(d) Relations, curated by Julie Crenn, Transpalette – Antre Peaux Centre d’art contemporain, Bourges, France
2021 Here and now, Media Art Festival Friesland, Leeuwarden, Netherlands (Nomination for Young Masters Award 2020)
2021 The Nature of the Cities Festival, online
2020 Teachable Moment, curated by Mike Calway-Fagen, Stove Works, Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
2019 Mutant Institute of Environmental Narratives, Matadero Madrid, Spain
2016 PROJECT_16, Royal College of Art, London, UK
COMMISSIONS
2019 Mutant Institute of Environmental Narratives, in collaboration with Platform-Cities Madrid, Spain
2016 PROJECT_16, co-produced by the Brazilian Embassy in London, Istituto Italiano di Cultura and World Congress of Overseas Pakistani, in collaboration with Instituto Tomie Ohtake (São Paulo), Royal College of Art, London, UK
AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS
2024 Opline Prize International, France (nominee)
2022 Bio Art and Design (BAD) Award, Netherlands (nominee)
2020 Media Art Friesland, Netherlands (nominee)
GRANTS AND RESIDENCIES
2024 Artist in Residence Program UPV ai2, Synthetic Biology and Biosystems Control Lab, Valencia Polytechnic University, Valencia, Spain
2023 ARTeCHÓ – Art, Economy and Technology – Unleashing the potential of Crypto Art and other tech tools
• co-funded by the European Union, initiative created by SERN – Startup Europe Regions Network (Belgium), Baltan Laboratories (Netherlands), FZC-Etopia Center for Art & Technology (Spain), Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (Germany) and MEET Digital Cultural Center (Italy).
2022 European Media Art Platform (EMAP/EMARE)
• co-funded by Creative Europe, with residency at LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Gijón/Spain
2022 Translocalia Residency, Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation, London/UK
• grant from iPortunus Houses
2022 Particles, Bonfire Residency
2021 Translocalia (online @Translocalia)
TALKS, WORKSHOPS AND CONFERENCES
2024 Decentralized Futures: Launch of the ARTeCHÓ Publication, artist talk (online)
2024 ARTeCHÓ – Art Meets Academia, Frankfurt School Blockchain Center (online)
2024 Libro Blanco de la Interrelación entre Arte, Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad en España, Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània (CCCC), Valencia, Spain
2023 Gender, Technology and Power Networks, part of offDAC, talk with Azahara Cerezo and Silvia Binda Heiserova, ETOPIA Center for Art and Technology, Zaragoza, Spain
2023 Collective habitat augmentation – Enhancement, panel, moderated by Tereza Teklić and Olga Majcen Linn, Kontejner, Zagreb, Croatia
2023 RIXC Art Science Festival, [Green] AI, Art and Climate Change, panel moderated by Jens Hauser, National Library of Latvia, Riga, Latvia
2023 ARTeCHÓ, MEET Digital Culture Centre, Milan, Italy
2022 Peer Mentoring, BONFIRE artist-in-residency, guest visitor
2022 Critical hiking: A journey through the Asturian forests with artist Paula Nishijima, a route through the forests of Ladines in the Redes Natural Park (Spain) with architect Marlén López, from Laboratorio Biomimético, and university professor and forest expert Jose Roces
2022 The Nonlinear Patterns of a Superorganism, talk with Tobias Seidl and Lavinia Filippi, hosted by the Italian Cultural Institute, London, UK (online)
2021 Innovate4cities, Conference by Unhabitat & Mayors4climate, online
2021 Workshop Game of Swarms, Here and Now, Media Art Festival Friesland, Leeuwarden, Netherlands
2020 People of all species, also humans, Media Art Festival Friesland, Leeuwarden, Netherlands,
2020 Taboo – Transgression – Transcendence in Art & Science, The University of Applied Arts, Vienna/Online 26–28 November
2020 LEAF, Urban Ecological Arts Collective, online,
2019 Workshop Game of Swarms, Mutant Institute of Environmental Narratives, Matadero Madrid, Spain
2019 Workshop Art and Earth – Taking an Ecological view on Contemporary Art, with collective Think Twice, Leiden University, Netherlands
2018 LOOP Barcelona, moderator and participant at Professional meetings Programme, Barcelona, Spain
2016 A project for people I don’t know, talk with the ‘Nucleus of culture and participation’, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
2016 Paula Nishijma and Benjamin Seroussi in conversation with Hena Lee, Royal College of Art, London, UK (streamed live on March 8, 2006)
INDEPENDENT PROJECTS AND NETWORKS
2023-ongoing
Member of the board of the Dutch Association of Aesthetics (Nederlands Genootschap voor Esthetica)
2020-ongoing
FRIEC Collective – Forum for Radical Imagination on Environmental Cultures www.thenatureofcities.com
_ global platform for urban ecological art that nurtures humanity’s cultural relationships with nature. It is a program of The Nature of Cities
2020-ongoing
Luv ‘til It Hurts luvtilithurts.co
_an artist-led project about HIV and Stigma
2015-ongoing
Translocalia www.translocalia.com
_collaborator of TRANSLOCALIA: a network of artists, designers, curators and professionals of different domains that discuss and plan for the future through art.
2018-2020
Think Twice
_co-founder of a collective of researchers, professionals and thinkers focusing on critical of contemporary issues in the Academia and beyond.
Mar-Dec 2013
Goethe-Institut/São Paulo
_collaborator of the blog Studio Visits: an online platform dedicated to the curatorial research of contemporary art
INTERVIEWS
Getting in Touch with Paula Nishijima, IMPAKT Exhibition In Touch, March 2024.
Admiring Other Forms of Life, Sofija Anna Kozlova, Spiriterritory, November 9, 2023.
Plug in Habitat (2022), IN DIALOGUE: ARTIST TALK WITH LABORAL CENTRO DE ARTE, GIJÓN, EMAP, November 2022.
Paula Nishijima: Is The Artwork Only What We See?, Cyrine Bettaleb Ali, December 26, 2021.
PUBLICATIONS AND ARTIST BOOKS
2020 Antiviral Community Pamphlet, riso zine, 36 pages, 8 x 5.25”, curated and printed by Seth Daulton and Daniel Ogletree
2017 I travel because I have to, I come back because I love you, Artist book