Biography

I am Maria Luiza (Malu) Fragoso a Brazilian artist, researcher, and an educator.

I've earned my PhD in Arts and Multimedia from the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), São Paulo (2003), where I developed research on artistic experimentation in telematics. I also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo (2014) and was a postdoctoral artist-researcher at the École des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, France (2024).

I worked at the Institute of Arts of the University of Brasília from 1993 to 2009 and, from 2009 to 2025, at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. I coordinated NANO — Núclus of Art and New Organisms from 2010 to 2025 and now continue with the group as a collaborating researcher. Currently work as a Pedagogical Coordinator and Consultant at the Brazilian School of Art and Technology (EBAT), linked to Metaverse Agency, based in Rio de Janeiro.

As an artist, I have developed practices that address the interaction between traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge, focusing on experiences with rural workers and Brazilian Indigenous cultures, building a consistent body of work—both theoretical and practical—at the intersection of art, science, technology, and nature.

These works, which constitute a hybrid zone between organic and artificial life, including plants, bees, bacteria, and more, are inspired by nature and by models of thought ranging from scientific knowledge to ancestral wisdom, such as Amerindian Indigenous traditions and Eastern cultures.