Founder and Director of Mistaker Maker | Platform for Artistic Intervention
Proudly serrana (those who are native of mountainous regions), born in Covilhã in 1979, Lara claims that the constant curiosity that drives her comes from having grown up between two sets of cultures and customs. It was precisely this, her curiosity, that led her to Lisbon and Barcelona to study Architecture (FA-UTL and UPC-ETSAB). It also played the leading role in Lara’s interest in other artistic areas, including one that will last forever: Urban Art.
After a decade dedicated to classical architecture (in 2009, she was awarded the “Accessible Architecture” prize promoted by the Architects’ Order in Portugal), she combined that passion with her pride in being serrana and created WOOL | Covilhã Urban Art in 2011, the first festival dedicated to these artistic expressions in Portugal.
Since then, she has given rise to a succession of other formats, geographies and audiences, examples being LATA 65 | Urban Art Workshops for the Elderly (2012 – …), ESTAU | Estarreja Urban Art (2016 – …), Conquer your Dream x Portuguese Football Federation (2018), FAZUNCHAR (Figueiró dos Vinhos, 2019 – 2023) and ESPORO – ultural and Artistic Dissemination (2022).
In 2013/14, Lara was invited to organize the Portuguese artist committees performing in international projects: TOUR PARIS 13 (France) and DJERBAHOOD (Tunisia).
Permeating her career since its inception is Lara’s permanent interest in the general Arts, strongly mirrored in the curatorship and production of diverse cultural initiatives and exhibitions. This is the case for the integrated project FIO (Coimbra, 2016 and 2019), GTM – Sustained Route (Gaia, 2017), the exhibition Transformed Book (Coimbra, 2021) and the public art installation Blue Circle (Estarreja, 2021). Lara was also responsible for the curatorship and organization of the ATTERO exhibition by the artist Bordalo II (2017), which welcomed more than 27 000 visitors.
In April 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, Lara launched the Workbook – 40 ideas to make the most of your time. The workbook contained a compendium of illustrations created with the contributions of 40 authors, proposing activities with encouraging and dynamic messages for those over 65 years of age.
Lara is part of the driving group of the Red Iberoamericana de Arte Urbana, the working group Central Peripheries and between 2018 and 2022, she was part of the Reflection Group on the Future of Portugal, made up of 45 Portuguese paintings born after 1974, without party affiliation, in close proximity and exclusive dialogue with the President of the Republic, Professor Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
Above all else, Lara is someone passionate about what she does.
Keynote Lecture
(Urban) art as a tool for transforming territories and communities
Websites
www.linkedin.com/in/laraseixorodrigues
