For Maria Condado, the landscape transcends visual composition, being a vast and profound terrain of exploration, where not only pictorial elements, but also political and social aspects intertwine. The garden is not just a constructed natural space, but rather a reflection of a system: it is the product of cultures and human experiences that have shaped and influenced its form and function. Each element of the garden, from plants to structures, carries with it a meaning that reveals different ways of seeing and interacting with the world. For the artist, it is about understanding and questioning the social and cultural dynamics that shape how we perceive and relate to the environment around us.

The artist has exhibited widely in group and in solo exhibitions throughout the country namely Revolução na Noite (Centro de Arte Oliva, 2024), O Sono de Debussy (Galeria Carlos Carvalho, Lisboa, 2022), A Play of Boundaries (Carlos Carvalho, Lisbon, 2018), Uma loja, cinco casas, uma escola (Casa Bernardo, Caldas da Rainha, 2016), Ensaios sobre a (in)flexibilidade do natural – parte 2 (Ministério do Ambiente, Lisboa, 2014), Onde é a China?, (Museu do Oriente, Lisboa, 2016), 16º Programa de Exposições (Carpe Diem Arte e Pesquisa 2009), Hangart 7, (Salzburg, Áustria, 2009), Vestígio (Pavilhão 28, Hospital Júlio de Matos, Lisboa, 2005) and II Rothschild Bank Painting Prize Finalists Exhibition – Palácio das Galveias, Lisbon. Her works are held in numerous public and private collections such as PLMJ Foundation, Lisbon, Coleção Norlinda e José Lima, São João da Madeira, Grupo RAR, Porto.“Hortus” is the name of her artist book edited in 2016 by Stollen Books, Lisbon.

Mónica de Miranda (Porto, 1976) is a Portuguese/Angolan visual artist, filmmaker and researcher whose interdisciplinary and research-based practice critically looks at the convergence of politics, gender, memory, space and history. Her work encompasses drawing, installation, photography, film and sound, on the boundaries between documentary and fiction. Mónica investigates strategies of resistance, geographies of affection, storytelling and ecologies of care.

She is the founder of Hangar (2014), an art and research centre in Lisbon. Hangar’s programmes provide spaces where artists, curators and researchers, mainly from the global south, can co-create and build social and creative networks to benefit their communities.

As artist and co-curator of the project Greenhouse, Monica represents the Portugal Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2024.

Her work has been presented at major international events such as: 6th Lubumbashi Biennale; 12th Berlin Biennale; 12th Dakar Biennale; 5th Biennale Internationale de l’Art Contemporain de Casablanca; Bamako Encounters – 13th African Biennale of Photography; 14th Venice Architecture Biennale; BIENALSUR 2021; Houston FotoFest 2022; 18th Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia.

Solo and group exhibitions have taken place at: CAIXA Cultural, Rio de Janeiro; Bildmuseet, Umeå; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; Gulbenkian, Lisbon; MUCEM, Marseille; AfricaMuseum, Tervuren; MAAT, Lisbon; MUAC, Mexico City; Barbican, London; Autograph, London; Frac pays de la Loire, Nantes; Uppsala Museum, Sweden; MNAC, Lisbon; Camões Cultural Institute, Luanda, among others. Mónica’s work features in public and private collections worldwide.

Susana Gaudêncio’s work is usually involved in a research based practice and a combined media approach, such as drawings, video-animations, printmaking, books or publications presented in an installation context. Her projects elaborate on the relationship between the historical legacy of concepts such as: the utopian impulse, utopia, dystopia, heterotopia, strangeness, nomadism, and artistic production as a platform to find new possibilities for questioning utopia, as a critical device eminently political.

Susana Gaudêncio lives and works in Porto. She holds a degree in Painting from FBAUL. She earned a Master's degree in Fine Arts from Hunter College-City University of New York, as a scholarship recipient from FCG and FLAD. She holds a Ph.D. from FBAUL with support from FCT. Her research focuses on the theme "Machines of Imagining: The Utopian Impulse in Contemporary Art." She is a member of the collectives Pessoa Colectiva with Mafalda Santos and Círculo das Leitoras Peripatéticas with Susana Pomba and Sofia Gonçalves.

Her solo and group exhibitions include: Centro de Artes Visuais, Coimbra (2004); ISE Foundation, New York (2009); Museu da Electricidade (2009, 2014); Gulbenkian Museum (2010, 2016); Museu do Chiado, Lisbon (2012); SESC Pinheiros, São Paulo (2015); Galerie der Künstler, Munich (2016); Centro de Artes de Sines and Centro Cultural Emmerico Nunes, Sines (2017); Museu do Neo-Realismo (2018).

She has published several books, including Época de estranheza em frente ao mundo (2012, DOIS DIAS ed.); Luz Perpétua (2014, Fundação EDP); Itinerário Histórico do 25 de Abril (2016, Parsifal ed.); Estação Vernadsky (2017, DOIS DIAS ed.); and Páginas Inquietas. Sobre Documentos Insubmissos (2019, DOIS DIAS ed.). She coordinated the Artistic Residency and Exhibition project Estação Vernadsky with Soraya Vasconcelos. She curated, as part of Pessoa Colectiva (Mafalda Santos & Susana Gaudêncio), the exhibition O Princípio da Inércia at the Pavilhão Branco, Lisbon (2012); with Ana João Romana, the exhibition Viagens de livros. O livro de artista nos 25 anos da ESAD.CR at MiMO, Leiria (2015); and with Mário Moura the exhibition Páginas Inquietas. Sobre Documentos Insubmissos at Espaço Mira, Porto (2016).

She is a professor at ESAD in Caldas da Rainha (IPL), where she teaches in the Department of Fine Arts. Her work is represented in national collections such as the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, EDP Foundation, PLMJ Foundation, among others.