MARTA DE MENEZES; Lunchtime Talk

April 28, 2023

Marta de Menezes was born in 1975, she is a Portuguese artist, with a Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Lisbon and a Masters from the University of Oxford. She is director of Cultivamos Cultura, the leading institution dedicated to experimental art in Portugal. She also created Ectopia, Femeeting, and a couple other organizations. All the organizations arededicated to facilitate the collaborative work between artists and scientists. I was very impressed how many organizations Marta was able to create and still currently manage, all in order to help out artists and sciences express their work. I never thought there could be such a close connection between science and art as some of the pieces that Marta showed us. Once of the pieces that intrigued me the most was ecosystem in a glass jar in the first picture below in upper right corner. The fact that the ecosystem can grow a mushroom year in and year out is pretty extraordinary. One of the biggest take aways from this talk with Marta has to be her interpretation of Art. With the help of her husband she was able to come up with the idea that Art is a field of knowledge. She explains how Art is the closest thing to perfection in terms of human knowledge. Art will always be art unlike knowledge that some is forgotten and becomes obsolete, something that is created as art will always be art.