Silvia Noronha (*1984 Minas Gerais, Brazil) is an artist and researcher based in Minas Gerais and Berlin. She studied in Belo Horizonte, Copenhagen and Berlin and was a scholarship holder of the Goldrausch Women Artists Program in 2020. In her art practice Noronha is interested in engaging in potent encounters with material agency and in a participatory and collaborative process. She investigates how to observe and make space for matter to perform in its own rhythm and beyond rational meanings. Since 2015, Noronha has been working on the field speculative geology - a pseudo-scientific process in which she understands soil as a medium that concentrates multidimensional information, especially about time.Incorporating a wide variety of soil components, including earth, clay, glass, electronic waste and plastic, the artist simulates geological processes to create post-human sculptures.
Noronha was recently honored with the "Kummer-Vanotti-Stiftung Environment Award" (2023), the "Neukölln Kunstpreis" (2023), and the "Recherchestipendien" - Berlin Senate (2020) among others. Her installation "The Future of Stones - Speculation on Contaminated Matter" (2016) in response to the mining Environmental Crime in Mariana - MG was awarded the "Elsa Neumann Stipendium" Berlin (2019) and the "Mart Stam Preis" (2016).
Noronha has participated in exhibitions at the Katowice RONDO ART, Kunsthalle Enxergasse, Vienna (2024), Matilha Cultural, São Paulo (2024), Johannesburg Art Gallery (2023), Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin (2023), Berlin Art Week (2023), Centre for Craft, North Carolina (2023), The 5th Floor,Tokyo (2023), Villa Romana, Florenz (2023), Kunstquartier Bethanien Berlin (2022, 2020, 2017), Kunstverein Göttingen (2022), Kunsthaus Dresden - Municipal Gallery for Contemporary Art, (2021), together with Archipel Stations Community Radio at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, DE (2019), Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven (2020), among others.
She is also part of the project “Paisagens Mineiradas” - a series of exhibitions about the consequences of mining taking place in different cities in Brazil, a founder and board member of Archipel association and member of Archipel Stations Community Radio. In 2023 she lectured at Aalborg University (DK), Miyagi University of Education (JP), Tohoku University of Art and Design (JP), and offered workshops in different contexts internationally.
EXHIBITIONS
solo
2022 the breath below | Kunstverein Goettingen
group
2025 Retrospectiva Estudio Nuboso, Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama, Panama City, PA
2024 Paisagens Mineradas, Museu da Inconfidência, Ouro Preto, BR
2024 (Re)Born from Volcanoes, IFA Galerie Stuttgart, DE
2024 Adjacency, Rondo Sztuki - Museum of Fine Arts in Katowice, PL
2024 FROG CITY, Freilichtbühne Weißensee, Berlin, DE
2024 Paisagens Mineradas, Virada Cultural Amazonia de pé, Belem do Pará, BR
2024 vanishing structures. Politiken des Verschwindens (Klima Biennalle), Kunsthalle Enxergasse, Vienna, AU
2024 Fluxos, rumos e liminaridades socioambientais, Memorial da América Latina, São Paulo, BR
2024 Residual Flourishing, Project Space Festival at Co-Making Matters, Berlin, DE
2024 Paisagens Mineradas, Matilha Cultural, São Paulo, BR
2023 TERRENE, in the frame of the TAKEOVER, Villa Romana, Florenz, IT
2023 Things named [things], The 5th Floor, Tokyo, JP
2023 TERRENE, in the frame of the exhibition Frequently Asked Questions—Uferhallen, Berlin Art Week, DE
2023 Hard Heart, Spoiler Zone, Berlin, DE
2023 Soil Conversations, Galerie im Koernerpark, Berlin, DE
2023 NEO MINERALIA Synthetic and Digital rocks, Center for Craft, NC, USA
2023 Neukölln Art Prize 2023, Galerie im Saalbau - Gallery for contemporary art in North Neukölln Berlin, DE
2023 TERRENE (Temporal Experiment), in the frame of the exhibition Soil Conversations, Galerie im Koernerpark, Berlin, DE
2022 Elusive Grounds, Raum für drastische maßnahme, Berlin, DE
2022 Aliens are temporary, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, DE
2022 TERRENE (Temporal Experiment), PLAY! At ACAU - a creative program for Ukrainian children and their parents, Ana Conda am Ufer, Heizhaus, Berlin, DE
2022 TERRENE (Temporal Experiment), SUELO Heitzhaus, Heizhaus, Berlin, DE
2022 Altered Lands, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, DE
2022 AUSUFERN EXHIBIT - interdisciplinary program series, Uferstudios GmbH, Berlin, DE
2021 What the eyes cannot see, the heart cannot feel, kunsthaus Dresden, Municipal Gallery for Contemporary Art, DE
2021 Gebaüde ‘F’ open studios, Berlin Art Week, Berlin, DE
2021 Nothing is gonna change my world?, gr_und, Berlin, DE
2021 Nuclear Landscapes, online exhibition
2020 Sirene, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, DE, DE
2020 Economia, a festival on economy without the economists, online exhibition
2020 Dutch Design Week, Einhoven, NL
2019 Unnatural, Kleine Humboldt Galerie, Berlin, DE
2019 Soil is an Inscribed Body *participation with Archipel Radio, S A V V Y Contemporary, Berlin, DE
2019 GESTEIN - Soil, Sediment, Stone, Kunstverein Kärnten | Klagenfurt, AT
2018 Berlin Science Week - Art Science Exhibits, Thaer Institute of the Humboldt University, Berlin, DE
2017 The desert can no longer spread - it is everywhere, Project Space at KunstWerk, Cologne, DE
2017 Affen, Steine, Kühlerhauben - Mart Stam Prize 2016, Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Berlin, DE
2017 Synaesthesia, Bunker, Wiensowski & Harbord, Berlin, DE
2017 Edge. Piraeus, Casthela Art Center, Athens, GR
2014 VI Bienal de Arte da Une, Museum of Contemporary Art Salvador, Salvador, BR
AWARDS & SCHOLARSHIPS
2023 Second prize Neuköllner Kunstpreis 2023, Berlin, DE
2022 Environment and Art Award 2022 of the Kummer-Vanotti-Foundation, Bonn, DE
2022 Modul D - digital mediation formats Scholarship, Deutscher Künstlerbund e.V. DE
2020 Research Visual Arts Scholarship of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin, DE
2020 Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprogramm, Berlin, DE
2019 Elsa Neumann Scholarship, Berlin, DE
2016 Mart Stam Prize, Berlin, DE
2016 Artist*Scholarship of the Fondation Thorens, Basel, CH
2015 DAAD scholarship, Berlin, DE
RESIDENCES
2024 Residual Flourishing, Co-Making Matters, Haus der Statistik Berlin, DE
2023 Resonance Program, Supported by OSAKA EXPO, collaboration with Togatta Residency, Miyagi, JP
2023 Paradise Air. Tokyo, JP
2022 Guest artist of the Residency project ‘Radio Otherwise’, Inhotim Contemporary Art Center, Brumadinho, BR
2022 outsidein_insideout art Laboratory, Stadt Wehlen - national park Saxon Switzerland, DE
2022 Suelo Methodology Residency, Uferstudios Gmbh, Berlin, DE
KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE / TEACHING
2024 discussion, On wasted grounds, “Toxic Trash Heaps & Creative Surplus“, Aàdesokan Tom McCarthy Silvia Noronha, Diaphanes Espace Berlin, DE
2023 artist talk, “Transcultural Approaches on Art and Ecology”. Guest speakers: Hiroki Yamamoto (art critic) and Seiha Kurosawa (curator), Pedro Erber (mediator). Artists: Anais-karenin, Rubiane Maia, Silvia Noronha, Brazilian Embassy in Japan, Tokyo, JP
2023 conference “Memory, grief, and transformation in Brazil’s “iron quadrangle” - 3rd Annual meeting of the Environmental Humanities Justice Network, Aalborg University, DK
2023 artist Lecture, in the framework of residency “Resonance Program”, Miyagi University of Education, JP
2023 artist Lecture, in the framework of residency “Resonance Program”, Tohoku University of Art and Design, JP
2023 conference, with Estefanía Bournot (Academia Austríaca de las Ciencias), “Poéticas del vestigio: arte y catástrofe después de Mariana” CICLO DE CONFERENCIAS - Mundos inmundos Estéticas de la supervivencia en el Antropocenoo, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, DE
2022 artist Talk, Art & Education - a digital education project, Kunst Verein Goettingen, podcast
2020 exhibition talk, SIGNALE | If one day you find a stone smiling at you, would you tell anyone?, online event 2015 Lecture & Workshop, Carbon Open Day, Institute of Making, London, UK
PRESS / NOTABLE PUBLICATIONS (SELECTION)
2024 GeoSemantics II / The Contaminated Soil is Also our Feet, By Silvia Noronha & Anais-karenin, Assp journal
2024 GeoSemantics II / Poetic Materialization of Disaster: Strategies from Art and Minerality, By Ana Laura Cantera, Assp journal
2023 Geoescrituras de un planeta enfermo, Estefanía Bournot, Universität Innsbruck *(es)
2022 Toxic Beauty: New Aesthetics of Industrial Disaster, Julia Modes, 6th International Conference for Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Students *(en)
2022 Silvia Noronha shows art about ecological challenges on Grafenwerth Island, Bonn, e-Journal
2022 Silvia Noronha at Kunstverein Göttingen, artviewer,website
2022 Sounding finds and growing crystals at the Künstlerhaus Goettingen, Goettingen, Daily Journal
2022 Silvia Noronha shows installations for all senses, Goettingen, Daily Journal
2022 Listening to the breath of things, Kulturbuero-goettingen, e-Journal
2021 The material as agent Art, nature and Silvia Noronha, gallerytalk, website
2021 Catastrophes and the Turn of Time - Human Impacts on Geology, Rheinsberg Nuclear Power Plant. History and Future of a Technology, German National Bibliography Publications, book
2020 Fictional Journal, Issue 04. Responsibility, e-Journal
2020 Sirene – Goldrausch 2020, Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt. Berlin, Catalogue
2018 (Un)steady as a Rock: Believing, in Times of Make-believe, Anna Hallgren, Journal of Art History
2018 Silvia Noronha explores the future of non-natural stones, Designboom, website
2018 Environmental tragedy of Mariana is the theme of art exhibition in Germany, Deutsche Welle, TV
2017 Art in Catastrophe, Interview, Piauí Magazine
2017 Artist transform mud from the disaster in Mariana, Talk about art in the Anthropocene, Globo-news, TV
2017 Mud from Mariana mud turns into art, Deutsche Welle, TV
EDUCATION
2016 MA Textile and Surface Design | Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin (KHB), DE
2015 Semester abroad Glass and Ceramic handicraft | The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (KADK), DK
2013 BA Graphic Design | State University of Minas Gerais (UEMG), BR
Silvia Noronha (*1984 Minas Gerais, Brazil) is an artist and researcher based in Minas Gerais and Berlin. She studied in Belo Horizonte, Copenhagen and Berlin and was a scholarship holder of the Goldrausch Women Artists Program in 2020. In her art practice Noronha is interested in engaging in potent encounters with material agency and in a participatory and collaborative process. She investigates how to observe and make space for matter to perform in its own rhythm and beyond rational meanings. Since 2015, Noronha has been working on the field speculative geology - a pseudo-scientific process in which she understands soil as a medium that concentrates multidimensional information, especially about time.Incorporating a wide variety of soil components, including earth, clay, glass, electronic waste and plastic, the artist simulates geological processes to create post-human sculptures.
Noronha was recently honored with the "Kummer-Vanotti-Stiftung Environment Award" (2023), the "Neukölln Kunstpreis" (2023), and the "Recherchestipendien" - Berlin Senate (2020) among others. Her installation "The Future of Stones - Speculation on Contaminated Matter" (2016) in response to the mining Environmental Crime in Mariana - MG was awarded the "Elsa Neumann Stipendium" Berlin (2019) and the "Mart Stam Preis" (2016).
Noronha has participated in exhibitions at the Katowice RONDO ART, Kunsthalle Enxergasse, Vienna (2024), Matilha Cultural, São Paulo (2024), Johannesburg Art Gallery (2023), Galerie im Körnerpark, Berlin (2023), Berlin Art Week (2023), Centre for Craft, North Carolina (2023), The 5th Floor,Tokyo (2023), Villa Romana, Florenz (2023), Kunstquartier Bethanien Berlin (2022, 2020, 2017), Kunstverein Göttingen (2022), Kunsthaus Dresden - Municipal Gallery for Contemporary Art, (2021), together with Archipel Stations Community Radio at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, DE (2019), Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven (2020), among others.
She is also part of the project “Paisagens Mineiradas” - a series of exhibitions about the consequences of mining taking place in different cities in Brazil, a founder and board member of Archipel association and member of Archipel Stations Community Radio. In 2023 she lectured at Aalborg University (DK), Miyagi University of Education (JP), Tohoku University of Art and Design (JP), and offered workshops in different contexts internationally.