Artists in residence

Gabriela de Matos is an architect, curator, and activist-researcher, deeply aligned with the concept of research-action developed in Latin America. In 2023, Gabriela co-curated the Brazil Pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, winning the Golden Lion for Best National Participation alongside Paulo Tavares. Born in the Vale do Rio Doce, Minas Gerais (Krenak indigenous territory), she graduated in Architecture and Urbanism from PUC Minas in 2010. In 2016, she specialized in Sustainability and Management of the Built Environment at UFMG and holds a master’s degree in Humanities, Rights, and Other Legitimacies from USP. Gabriela de Matos served as co-president of the Institute of Architects of Brazil in the São Paulo department (2020-2022) and teaches in the undergraduate architecture program at Instituto Escola da Cidade – SP. Her research focuses on pre-colonial and contemporary architecture from Africa and its diaspora, with an emphasis on Afro-Brazilian architecture.

She proposes actions that promote discussions of gender and race in architecture, aiming to bring visibility to these issues. She is the founder of the Black Female Architects project (2018), which has already mapped the work of more than 800 Black female architects in Brazil, and editor of the book Black Architects vol.1 (2019), the first publication of Black female architects in the country. 

Clémence de Montgolfier, a graduate of the TALM-Angers School of Art and Design (2011) and a PhD from Sorbonne-Nouvelle University (2017), is an artist, researcher, and translator. Her work explores conversational forms and the political power of listening, narratives and encounters. She has exhibited in France and internationally, most recently at the Maison populaire in Montreuil, the Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City, LACA in Los Angeles, CAC Brétigny and Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers. Since 2010, she has collaborated with Niki Korth on their joint project The Big Conversation Space. In 2020, she published Quand l’art contemporain passe à la télévision (Hermann/INA/CPGA, 2020). Her works are included in public collections.

Maïra de Oliveira Aggio is a Brazilian artist-researcher. After twelve years living in Europe, she still claims a visceral belonging to the North-East region of Brazil where she grew up (Salvador, Bahia). She graduated as a trapeze artist from ESAC (Ecole Supérieure des Arts du Cirque, Brussels) in 2013, after attending the Escola Nacional de Circo of Rio de Janeiro, the Universities of Contemporary Dance UFRJ (Rio de Janeiro), and UNICAMP (Campinas, São Paulo), movement and the body have a central place in her personal and professional life.

Passionate about transmission, certainly influenced by her teacher-researcher parents, Maïra de Oliveira Aggio has taught circus at CIAM (Centre Internationale des Arts en Mouvement, Aix-en-Provence) and at ARCHAOS (Pôle National des Arts du Cirque, Marseille). She has also been an Ashtanga yoga teacher for seven years.

Today, Maïra de Oliveira Aggio is writing her first solo show MACACADA in a multidisciplinary way, reflecting her background and her subjectivity. It is with this project that she is welcomed in residence at the Cité internationale des arts. MACACADA spans over themes that run through her work, such as the counter-colonisation of knowledge, ecology, feminism, and the performing arts. She is the winner of the Bourse Écriture Cirque 2021 from the Association Beaumarchais, as well as the Bourse Écriture en Campagne from LATITUDE 50 (Pôle des Arts du Cirque et de la Rue, Belgium).