Lucy and Jorge Orta
Lucy Orta
Although Lucy trained as a fashion designer at Nottingham Trent University, she has worked as a visual artist since the early 1990's. Lucy has worked to realise what she calls "architectures with soul" - objects that respond to a critical and constructive gaze on the most sensitive areas of society, evoking the need for change, poetically prefiguring reality and suggesting alternative life styles. Her early works 'Refuge Wear' (1992-1998) and 'Body Architecture' (1994-1998), comprise tents that become overcoats, backpacks that become sleeping bags or tents; prototype structures, light and autonomous for emergency 'situations'. She created 'Nexus Architecture' (1994-2002) in which a variable number of people wearing suits connected to each other, shaping modular and collective structures that put into forms the concept of Social Link. She has produced numerous interventions and actions putting on stage crucial themes of contemporary world: the community and social exclusion, dwelling, mobility, sustainable development, recycling. Parallel and feeding into her practice, Professor Orta was invested as the first Rootstein Hopkins Chair of Fashion at London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts London (2002-2007) and she now holds the title of Professor of Art, Fashion and the Environment. Lucy was also a founding member of the Master in Industrial Design 'Man and Humanity' at the Design Academy in Eindhoven (2002), the first design program to stimulate socially driven and sustainable design.
Jorge Orta
Trained in both fine arts and architecture, Jorge began his career as a painter graduating from the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Architecture from the University of Rosario. In response to the censorship of the Argentine military regime his practice broadened to include the avant-guard and alternative forms of visual communication such as mail art and performance, widely practiced throughout South America in the 1970’s. He was the first artist in Argentina to explore video and light projections, creating highly controversial public installations in the height of the dictatorship. Jorge Orta received a French Ministry of Culture scholarship and moved to Paris in 1982. Parallel to his studio practice, he began experimenting with and developed the technology for large-scale image projection, pioneered in the USA in the early 1980’s. Since then, he has created a unique public art form collating contextual signs and images, and collaborating with local communities to illuminate mythical sites and urban locations of cultural and ecological importance across the world. 'Poeme Infographique’ for the Pompidou Centre Paris (1992); ‘Imprints on the Andes’ an expedition across the Andes Mountain range and culminating in the Machu Picchu citadel in Peru for the 500th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas (1992). He has bathed the facades of the Venetian Palaces in light graffiti or ‘Light Messenger’, representing Argentina at the Venice Biennale (1995); and more obsolete World Heritage sites such as Cappadocia in Turkey; the medieval city Cuenca overhanging the Hueca canyon in Spain; Aso, the largest volcano in activity on the island of Kyushu, Japan; Place Stanlistas in Nancy for the World Transplant Athletes’ Games; and the cathedrals of Chartres, Evry and the Zocolo in Mexico City.
Together with his partner Lucy Orta, they co-founded Studio-Orta in Paris (1991) and The Dairy, Marne La Vallé (2002) research and collaboration centres for the coordination and production of the multi-dimensional practice: artworks, interventions, editions, workshops, seminars and residencies.
