Professor Lucy Orta

Biography

Lucy Orta is an internationally recognised expert in visual arts practitioner exploring making, history and theory through the material lens of textiles.

Her practice investigates the interrelations between the individual body and community structures, exploring their diverse identities and means of cohabitation. Methods include drawing, textile-led practice, photography, film and performance to realise singular bodies of work including, Refuge Wear / Body Architecture, portable and autonomous habitats that reflect on issues of mobility and human survival; Nexus Architecture, clothing and accessories that shape modular and collective bodies through the metaphor of the social link; and Lifeguard wearables that investigate the vulnerability and resilience of the human body.

Lucy's participative projects with marginalised and vulnerable communties employ storytelling, co-creation and reciprocal learning often to empower participants through textile-led practice, these include EU-Roma, mapping hard-to-reach Roma tribes across Europe (EU Culture Programme 2007-2013); Traces: Stories of Migration with East London migrant communities (Arts Council of England 2022-2024); Lifeline with UK refugee and asylum seekers (AHRC 2022-2024); Banner Processions with female prisoners (Historic England 2017-2018).

Lucy co-founded Studio Orta in 1992 to develop long-term collaborative projects exploring broader social and ecological issues including,
- local and global food cycles through the ritual of community dining - 70 x 7 The Meal,
- water scarcity - OrtaWater (Green Leaf Award for artistic excellence with an environmental message, presented by the United Nations Environment Programme in partnership with Natural World Museum, Nobel Peace Center, Oslo 2007),
- climate change and displacement - Antarctica,
- species loss and interwoven ecosystems - Amazonia.

Lucy Orta's work has reached global audiences in esteemed museums and exhibitions including, Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1994); Johannesburg Biennial (1997); Weiner Secession, Vienna; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (1999); USF Contemporary Art Museum, Florida for which she received the Visual Arts Award from the Andy Warhol Foundation (2001); Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice Biennale (2005); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2006); Biennial of the End of the World, Ushuaia; the Antarctic Peninsula (2007); Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2008); Natural History Museum, London (2010); Shanghai Biennale; MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome (2012); Terrace Wires, St Pancras International, London; The Johnson Museum, Cornell; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield (2013); Parc de la Villette, Paris; Nuit Blanche, Calgary (2014); London Museum Ontario, Canada (2015); Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester; City Gallery and Museum, Peterborough (2016); Humber Street Gallery, Hull; Frieze Projects, London (2017) Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Fountains Abbey Studley Royal, Ripon; European Cultural Capital Leeuwarden-Fryslân (2018); Palazzo Vecchio, Museo Salvatore Ferragamo, Museo Novecento, Florence (2019); Les Tanneries centre d'art contemporain, Amilly; Drawing Lab, Paris (2020); Diversity United, Berlin, Paris, Moscow (2021). Pompidou Metz, France (2022); Beaufort Triennale, Belgium and Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale (2024); British Textile Biennial 2025.

Appointed as Professor at University of the Arts London (UAL) London College of Fashion in 2002, she is a member of UAL's Centre for Sustainable Fashion, TrAIN (Research Centre for Transnational Art Identity and Nation) and a Research Affiliate at MIT's Art Culture Technology Lab. As Chair of Art and the Environment Lucy Orta founded the UAL Art for the Environment Residency Programme. In acknowledgement of her academic contribution to the visual arts, Lucy has received an honorary Master of Arts from Nottingham Trent University and an honorary Doctor of Letters from University of Brighton.