Professional and Biographical Information

Degrees

M.F.A., Sculpture, Rhode Island School of Design (2015)
B.F.A., Painting, Universidad Católica del Perú (2008)

Research Interests

My art practice explores the different relationships people have with other living beings, especially with plants. I am interested in the ways we relate to each other,  the forms of exchange that we practice or perpetuate, and how art can allow for a re-performance of social dynamics and structures. Further, I am interested in these ideas not only within groups of humans but also non-humans alike.

Sculpture, drawing, social practice, biomaterials, collaboration, and art+science exchange are opportunities for me to learn from, with, and about others. Some of my strategies have included walking with plants in very different cities; standing by trees with feet buried in the forest floor; using my senses to smell, taste, observe, hear, and touch trees; using tools such as microscopes or satellites, and then making my own tools (a.k.a sculptures) to tap into completely different ways of sensing and perceiving; I have launched potato seeds to outer space, and connected to the network between trees and fungi beneath our feet. 

A common thread in my work is the idea that to learn from plants is to learn about interspecies relationships and community, about migration and making place, about culture and politics, about change, urgency, and also patience.

Teaching Interests

My art practice is fueled by questions, and that is precisely how I see my role as an educator, crafting spaces that are simultaneously studios, laboratories, public plazas, and forests where questions sustain re-search and knowledge is built collectively by the group. This includes expanding a material vocabulary that incorporates not only traditional art materials but also biomaterials that we research and make together. These biomaterials introduce the possibility of a more sustainable practice and also serve as an entry point for discussing collaboration and coexistence with nonhumans because living bacteria, yeast, or fungi become the co-creators of these materials.

I believe art education is an opportunity to be inspired by and to push against received notions of art-making. I encourage students to make artworks that reflect themselves and their reality instead of only mirroring the Western canon.  This incudes broadening what we think a sculpture is and what it can do. In this sense, I hope we will be making sculptures that can be looked at through different lenses and sculptures that need to be experienced with other senses than sight; sculptures that move or make others mobilize with them; sculptures that grow and sculptures that can be composted; sculptures that transform in time and sculptures that become time capsules; sculptures that represent exactly detailed plans and sculptures that were thought to only live in the wildest of dreams.

Selected Awards, Honors, and Residencies

Artist in Residence with FIBRA collective, Fondation LAccolade - lnstitut de France (2022)
Artist in Residence, Stelo Arts (2022)
Artist in Residence, King School Museum of Contemporary Art (KSMoCA) (2020-2022)
COAL Award with FIBRA collective , COAL Art and Environment (2021)
Support BEAM Award, Regional Arts and Culture Council (2020)
National Award for Artistic Production with FIBRA collective, Peruvian Ministry of Culture (2019)
Eliza Moore Fellowship for Artistic Excellence, Oak Spring Garden Foundation (2018)
Artist in Residence, Whitechapel Gallery (2018)
Artist in Residence, Guapamácataro Art & Ecology (2018)
Art-Science Exchange Residency, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (2016)
Social Innovation Fellowship, Brown University (2014)

Selected Recent Exhibitions and Public Space Projects

Radical Propagations, group show at 18th St Arts Center, Santa Monica (2022)
Le chant des forêts  with FIBRA collective, Maif Social Club, Paris (2022)
Unearthing Futures with Xin Liu, OCAT Biennial, Shanghai (2022)
Rendering with Xin Liu, group show at PHD Group, Hong Kong (2022)
Coalesce, group show at Stelo Arts, Portland (2021)
Negar el desierto, group show at Museum of Contemporary Art in Lima (2021)
Desbosque: desenterrando señales with FIBRA collective, Museum of Contemporary Art in Lima (2020)
Sojourner 2020, group show at International Space Station (2020)
Sojourner 2020, group show at Ars Electronica, online (2020)
Plantón Móvil, Queens Museum (2019)
Plantón Móvil, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018)
Watershed, group show at Wits University Origins Centre, Johannesburg (2018)

Selected Lectures and Presentations

Queens Museum
Museum of Contemporary Art in Lima
RISD Museum
Rhode Island School of Design
ArtCenter
Brown University 
Melbourne University
Universidad Católica del Perú
Witwatersrand University
Caltech University
Portland State University
Willamette University
Lewis & Clark College
SUNY Purchase
Espacio Fundación Telefónica - Lima
Biodesign Challenge
Genspace

Website

luciamonge.com