Marisa Ferreira (b. 1983, Portugal), lives and works between Oslo and London. With a background in visual art and art in public space, Marisa is currently a Phd candidate at the Royal College of Art, London with the thesis title: “Waste Matter. Public Art and the (Im)Materiality of Post-Colonial Memory”, and a research member of SpaceX - Spatial Practices in Art and ArChitecture for Empathetic EXchange.

Her work draws from childhood memories of being born in a context of loss and industrial decline that characterized the 1980s in the north of Portugal, and focuses on industrial ruins and processes of deindustrialization that took place in the aftermath of the end of the Portuguese empire. Through practice-led and interdisciplinary methodologies, recent works investigate the intersection between colonialism and the Anthropocene to discuss themes of materiality-memory, colonialism, displacement social justice and urban regeneration. Often blurring reality and fiction, the works explore the ways memory, place and cultural identity intersect to rese arch how abandoned architectural structures can be used to understand a collective past and how they can be imbued into narrative identities to rethink and reimagine a more inclusive and sustainable future.