MARIANA
MAIA ROCHA
Visual Artist
Porto, Portugal
PT | EN
Mail to marianamaiarocha@gmail.com
BIO
Mariana Maia Rocha (Porto, Portugal, 2000) is a visual artist and researcher whose interdisciplinary practice explores the intersections of body, memory, territory, and material transformation through drawing, installation, photoperformance, sculpture, ceramics, and research-based artistic methodologies. Her work investigates processes of presence, erasure, trace, and inscription, engaging with questions of archive, landscape, architecture, heritage, and embodied memory. She holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, graduating with the highest distinction (20/20), following an outstanding academic trajectory. She previously completed a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts – Painting and was awarded Merit Scholarships throughout her academic studies. Maia Rocha is the recipient of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation New Talents Scholarship (2023–2024) and a Gulbenkian Doctoral Scholarship supporting PhD studies abroad from 2026 onwards. She currently serves as a Gulbenkian Scholarship Ambassador. Since 2018, she has developed an increasingly international artistic practice through exhibitions, biennials, residencies, research projects, publications, and institutional collaborations across Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. Recent highlights include participation in ARCOlisboa (2026), a residency at Residency Unlimited (New York), the solo exhibition At the Threshold of Memory (Macau, 2025), participation in Laboratório do Atlântico – Contemporary Art from São Tomé and Príncipe (UCCLA, Lisbon), and exhibitions at the National Museum of Contemporary Art – Museu do Chiado, Fundação Júlio Resende, Centro Cultural Vila Flor/CIAJG, Kubik Gallery, Sociedade Guilherme Cossoul, and ArtLab24. She has been invited to participate in the Vila Franca de Xira Photography Biennial (2026) and the São Tomé and Príncipe Biennial (2027). Her work is represented by Tomorrow’s Heritage Gallery (Macau / China) and is held in public and private collections in Portugal and internationally.
STATEMENT
My practice operates at the intersection of body, memory, territory, and material transformation. Through drawing, installation, photoperformance, sculpture, ceramics, and research-based methodologies, I investigate processes of presence, erasure, trace, and inscription as ways of understanding how individual and collective memories become embedded within bodies, objects, architectures, and landscapes. Drawing functions as the central structure of my practice, extending beyond representation to become a performative and investigative tool capable of recording gestures, temporalities, and forms of encounter. Through processes of accumulation, repetition, displacement, and material transformation, I explore how traces survive, disappear, or re-emerge within contemporary contexts marked by instability, migration, urban transformation, and historical rupture. My work frequently engages with archives, vernacular knowledge, archaeological remains, and specific territorial contexts, approaching them not as fixed repositories of meaning but as dynamic fields of negotiation between past and present. Through site-responsive methodologies, I seek to reveal hidden narratives and overlooked histories while examining the ways in which memory is continuously produced, contested, and transformed. Recent projects have focused on questions of Atlantic heritage, urban erasure, embodied memory, and material degradation, developed through residencies and research projects in Portugal, São Tomé and Príncipe, Macau, and New York. Across different media, my practice proposes forms of attention to what remains, what disappears, and what persists through processes of transformation.
REPRESENTATION
Tomorrow’s Heritage Gallery
Macau / China
EDUCATION
2023–2025
Master’s Degree in Fine Arts – Painting
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto
2019–2023
Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts – Painting
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto
2018–2019
Integrated Master’s Degree in Architecture
Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto
AWARDS & SCHOLARSHIPS
2027– Calouste Gulbenkian Doctoral Scholarship
2026 Viana de Lima Prize
2026 IJUP Junior Research Award
2026 Finalist, YARITORI International Art Award (Japan)
2025 JOV’ARTE Prize
2023–2024 A BASE Artistic Residency Prize
2023–2024 Calouste Gulbenkian New Talents Scholarship
2023 Millennium BCP Acquisition Prize
2023 Collector’s Prize
2020–2023 Merit Scholarships, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto
COLLECTIONS
University of Porto Public Collection
Millennium BCP Foundation Collection
Loures Municipal Collection
Viana de Lima Collection
Cerveira Art Biennial Foundation Collection
Fernando Figueiredo Ribeiro Collection
João Luís Traça Collection
Ivo Martins Collection (on long-term deposit at Serralves Foundation)
Rui Magalhães Collection
Gonçalo Caramelo Assis Collection
Luís Ribeiro Collection
Private collections in Portugal
Private collections in Macau
Private collections in Denmark
RESEARCH & TEACHING
2025
Author of Curatorial Texts for the Maurizio Cattelan Exhibition
Serralves Museum
2024–Present
Lecturer
Advanced Drawing Programme
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto
2024–2025
Visiting Lecturer
Drawing I
Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto
2023–2024
Researcher
Mirror Identity Drawings (MIDD)
UNESCO-endorsed Project
2022–Present
Research Collaborator
CEAU–FAUP
Centre for Studies in Architecture and Urbanism
2021–Present
Guide and Educator
Serralves Foundation
INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; Pláka (Shuttle Programme); Residency Unlimited, New York; Tomorrow’s Heritage Gallery, Macau; Roça Mundo; UCCLA; Camões, I.P.; Serralves Foundation; Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto; University of Porto; CEAU–FAUP; Cerveira Art Biennial Foundation; Albergue SCM, Macau; Centro Cultural Vila Flor / CIAJG
MARIANA MAIA ROCHA 