Studio Orta

'Migrations and Climate' explores the dynamics of migration in relation to climate change through artistic, scientific and public perspectives. Lucy + Jorge Orta present a major installation of their long-term research project Antarctica, including Antarctic Village No Borders from the museum collection and Antarctica World Passport Office with a new edition of the passport printed for the occasion (Ed. 9).

Curators: Bruno Girveau, Élisabeth Jolys-Shimells and Gabriel Picot

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Lucy + Jorge Orta: Homo Mondialis

Through intricate embroidery and appliqué works, sculpture and immersive video installations, Lucy + Jorge Orta's survey exhibition for the 2025 British Textile Biennial crosses continents and oceans, from the polar ice cap to the jungle, from the desert to the forest.

The artists are modern day explorers and storytellers, working with environmental scientists across the globe in an attempt to comprehend the impact of man’s production and consumption on natural habitats through the centuries. The works on show represent a survey of Lucy’s textile works that capture her observations on man’s enduring relationship with the environment and the lessons we urgently need to learn from this precious place we currently inhabit in order to survive its increasingly extreme climates, of our own making.

'Homo Mondialis' invites you on a journey, to discover humanity’s ancestral knowledge and the ancient wisdom that learnt from nature, enabling people to survive in the most challenging conditions, using the earth’s resources without destroying them and living in harmony with the planet.

Curator: Laurie Peake

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Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art 'Re-Constellations' examines how ancient interpretations of celestial bodies relate to the modern dynamics of globalisation and localisation.

Lucy + Jorge Orta present Archipelago, immense textile maps representing islands and countries of Southeast Asia. The linen canvases are embroidered with nautical lines and compass roses taken from early 17th-century Dutch and British maritime trade maps. The work speaks to the cultural and ecological impact of the transcontinental network of economic and political interests that governed relationships between Asia and Europe, formally the Silk Route. The islands are crafted with textiles originating from South East Asia–Java batik, Chinese jacquard, Japanese prints, Malay embroideries–assembled to simulate imaginary topographies and ornamented with beaded silk flowers. 'Archipelago' offers a poetic and silent plea against environmental degradation caused by overconsumption.

Curators: Shi Hui, Assadour Markarov, Jiang Jun, Huang Yan and Xu Jia

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Making reference to Paul Eluard's poem 'Les Yeux fertiles', the exhibition at Havas Paris headquarters welcomes visitors through a forest of gigantic and vibrant species. The monumental wall drawings by Lucy + Jorge Orta draw from their research investigating the natural environment and species loss, creating a poetic dialogue between contemporary urban architecture and threatened biodiversity.

Curator: The Caring Gallery

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Jane Lombard Gallery, Lucy + Jorge Orta present recent their most paintings Fabulae Naturae, underscoring a longstanding commitment to evolving forms of representation to alert to the fragility of our natural world in the face of the human impact of global warming and deforestation.

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This major exhibition investigates how artists and activists from around the world understand the interrelations between living beings, humans, their creations, and the environments they inhabit. Among the featured works, Body Architecture by Lucy + Jorge Orta explores the macrocosm of community and modular collective dwellings by creating physical links between individuals and symbolising the many emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual ties that connect us.
 
Curators: Adriano Pedrosa, André Mesquita and Isabella Rjeille

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Lucy + Jorge’s latest public sculpture Il Nido is an elegant 4-metre bronze tree drawing together three forms of representation. The trunk, a tower of gnarled olive roots with their knots and scars registering wounds inflicted; Pollino’s endangered birds, bearing witness to the fragile ecological balance of the woodland; and the local stones as mineral anchors, symbolising the resilience of geological time.

‘Il Nido’ marks the artists’ third artwork for Pollino in collaboration with Associazione ArtePollino, and the support of the Municipality of Lauria.

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The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2025 is dedicated to art’s capacity to forge dialogues and to afford us sensitivity towards societal concerns, such as ecology, survival and living together. Presented are works from Lucy + Jorge Orta’s ‘Lifeline’ series that refer to both physical and material survival and more symbolically to the spiritual needs of man, such as affection and solidarity – as gestures of comfort that can be extended out to those in need.

Curator: Farshid Moussavi

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The exhibition Potential Architecture condenses some of the key concepts on which Lucy + Jorge Orta have focused their research over the last three decades. In particular, the potential of new forms of dwelling and ways of living in relationship with our identity, the environment, frontiers, and cross border migration.

The body of works presented by SPARC, includes a series of large format drawings and collage, architectural models in light-steel and hand-blown glass and key work from the Antarctica project, a tent dwelling appliquéd with clothes, gloves and silkscreen printed world flags that addresses international human rights and the value of the natural environment to our daily lives and to our survival. Architecture has a key role in shaping the artists’ practice and concepts, through which it is possible to imagine the cohabitation of humans and non-humans today and for the future.

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Âmes vertes —Green Souls— is an exhibition curated by French historian Paul Ardenne at Friche de la Belle de Mai in Marseille from 8 February to 1 June 2025. This exhibition invites audiences to reflect on their relationship with the living world through artworks that strive for ecological moderation and shape new ecosophical models.

A highlight of the exhibition is Symphony for Absent Wildlife (2014-2020). This immersive installation features a life-size orchestra dressed in felt top and tails, wearing masks of creatures once abundant on the Albertan plains of Canada. Bison, moose, wapiti, wolves, grizzly bears, mountain goats, beavers, and eagles have been pushed to near extinction by exploitative human practices. The costumed orchestra, video, and soundscape create a fully immersive environment, evoking the loss of cultural heritage and endangered ecosystems.

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What happens when we not only accept the walls around us as a given, but consciously perceive, conquer, and shape them?

This question will be explored through the pioneering BODY ARCHITECTURE works by Lucy Orta, presented in the exhibition My Room More than 4 Walls at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Junge Kunsthalle from 1 February to 21 September 2025. Young audiences will be invited to interact with the arm, hood, or leg appendages of the sculpture, exploring ways in which dwelling spaces are constructed emotionally, intellectually, socially, and spiritually.

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Meteoros refers to the ancient Greek word meaning “high in the air.” Clouds also evoke the cycles of water, exploring its scarcity and abundance, a theme we have been investigating through the long-term project OrtaWater since 2005. In this work, clouds carry life-size figures on an imaginary journey through the skies. METEOROS (2015) is presented in a new installation at The Hyundai Daegu in South Korea from 2 January to 31 May 2025. Visitors will experience the work up close, where mirror plinths create the impression of clouds floating in space, challenging ways in which sculpture engages with everyday life.

We are thrilled to share the trailer for the feature film SEED, directed by David Bickerstaff, set to premiere at film festivals soon.

Jorge Orta, who endured the brutal military regime that terrorized Argentina between 1974-1983, revisits his past in this poignant film. During this ‘Dirty War,’ suspected communists, artists, intellectuals, and writers were detained, tortured, and raped under a state-sponsored campaign of eradication. In response, Jorge created many performances and artworks that could not be revealed at the time.

Decades later, Jorge embarks on a journey from the spectacular deserts of Central America to the streets of Buenos Aires, recalling the corruption and performing acts of protest and resistance. Using non-actors and minimal dialogue, this film is a poetic exploration of one man’s journey through an epic landscape, reflecting on the loss of innocence, oppressive states, and human cruelty.

Pour le 60e October Salon, Lucy + Jorge Orta ont mis en scène l'acte 47 de 70 x 7 The Meal. Dans le cadre de « Trace », sous le commissariat de Lorenzo Balbi et Dobrila Denegri, cette commande inaugurale de la biennale a été conçue comme une proposition collective visant à créer un dialogue entre les artistes, la scène culturelle de la ville et les structures qui déterminent la politique culturelle au niveau local et national.

Le 18 octobre 2024, deux cents invités se sont réunis autour d'une table installée devant le Centre culturel de Belgrade pour discuter de questions élaborées en conversation avec des artistes serbes et des travailleurs du secteur culturel. Les quatre thématiques abordées portaient sur les conditions dans lesquelles les artistes travaillent, le rôle de l'artiste dans la société d'aujourd'hui, les besoins des organisations culturelles et la manière dont les politiques nationales affectent les pratiques culturelles. Pour faciliter le dialogue, les invités avaient à leur disposition des "provocations" imprimées sur les chemins de table et brodées sur les serviettes de table, formant un manifeste collectif qui s'est développé au fil des interactions pendant le repas.
Selon Dobrila Denegri, cet « acte performatif collectif est une forme de protestation pacifique, [...] s'asseoir à la même table, partager le pain et la nourriture peut être un moyen d'attirer l'attention sur certains des problèmes brûlants auxquels sont confrontés les artistes et les travailleurs culturels dans notre pays ».

Pour plus d'informations, vous pouvez télécharger le communiqué de presse d'October Salon Serbe | Anglais.

Nous tenons à remercier tout particulièrement le chef Vladimir Zoplet et le collectif de broderie NEpraktične žeNE.

My centre everywhere, the special project for Moderne Art Fair as artistes invités, is inspired by the poem ‘Amazonia’ written by British eco-poet Mario Petrucci and based on video footage recorded by Lucy and Jorge in the Amazon rainforest. Commencing in the Andes where mountain glaciers are melting at a faster rate than ever recorded and descending to the Amazon river basin where mercury mining is devasting the river’s ecological balance, Petrucci reconstructs the artists’ expedition through the positionality of Gaia, and Man, a dichotomy between the ecologically-centred thinking and Progress.

The installation comprised of a range of different artworks from the artists’ Amazonia series, forming a interrelated microcosm of mediums and formats that reflect the imaginary and complexity of our natural world. We see trees, plants, flowers, insects, birds rendered in drawing, painting, crafted in textiles, embroidered, and sculpted. The artworks are a compilation of visual and sensory data collected and transcribed from regions of the world the artists have visited, indicative of the interwoven nature of biodiversity they observe first-hand. Further information in the catalogue.

My centre everywhere was made possible thanks to Hum media, with special thanks to Frederick Moraux and Flavie Durand-Ruel.

For the Jing’an International Sculpture Project 2024 curated by UCCA Lab, Lucy + Jorge Orta presented Genius Loci —a new commission in the Genius Loci series, representing the ‘spirit of the place’ traversing time, past, present, future, shaping cultural, social and ecological transitions.

Pour les Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques 2024, et sous la direction artistique de COAL, Plaine commune propose le parcours artistique Les Victoires, composé de 6 oeuvres monumentales le long des berges réaménagées du Canal Saint-Denis.

Dans la série Genius Loci, Lucy + Jorge Orta présentent "L'envol", une sculpture en bronze d'un enfant grandeur nature tenant dans sa main un oiseau. Placée sur la passerelle surplombant le canal Saint-Denis et le stade olympique, cette figure universelle symbolise le lien entre les générations, une image dynamique et poétique de renouveau d'un quartier en devenir, au cœur des transitions urbaines et écologiques. Elle nous montre le chemin à parcourir et l’avenir avec toute la ferveur de la jeunesse.

Un projet en collaboration avec COAL et en partenariat avec les villes de Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers et Paris.

Pour célébrer ses 15 ans, COAL, association de référence pour l'art et l'écologie, présente une grande exposition pluridisciplinaire curatée par Lauranne Germond et Sara Dufour, mettant en lumière près de 50 artistes représentant la richesse et la variété des approches de la scène artistique de l'écologie.

Pour cette occasion, un groupe de dix "Procession Banners 1918-2018" co-créées avec des détenues de la prison HMP Downview de Londres est présenté pour la première fois en France. Ces oeuvres commémorent les succès de la lutte collective pour la construction d'un avenir commun, à l'occasion du centenaire du mouvement des suffragettes, ces Britanniques qui se sont battues pour arracher le droit de vote des femmes à l'aube du xxe siècle. On peut y voir des slogans libératoires en mémoire des 1 000 femmes qui furent emprisonnées cent ans plus tôt, dans ce même lieu, parce qu'elles luttaient pour leurs droits. Côte à côte, ces banderoles forment une clameur qui résonne à travers les âges et nous parvient aujourd'hui, empreinte de ferveur éco-féministe, comme un appel à l'action pour nos droits climatiques.

For the 8th Beaufort Triennial curated by Els Wuyts, Lucy + Jorge Orta have created Gazing Ball: Reflective Dialogues for the Beaufort Sculpture Park, which extends 67km along the Belgium coast.

The Gazing Ball is installed in the town of Middelkerke. Visitors are greeted by the contours of a small architecture – open and boundless –; it is an inviting artwork into which people can enter through four passage ways. In the nave of the gathering space, resembling a compass rose, is a large reflective sphere that crowns the artwork, capturing the constantly shifting play of light and shadow. As in previous Potential Architecture works by the artists, the reflections offer new perspectives on the landscape while humbly situating the viewers within their surroundings. Seated within, visitors are given a moment for contemplation, self-reflection, and to engage in conversation. It is art on a human scale.
 
‘Gazing Ball: Reflective Dialogues’ also pays homage to adjacent Radio Oostende station. Wireless telegraphy played a crucial role in ensuring safety along the Oostende-Dover route, serving as an essential connection between the shore and ships. The sculpture not only establishes a tangible connection between people, but also a symbolic connection between heaven and earth, past and present.

As part of the 2024 Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale public program, Lucy + Jorge Orta staged a sohour meal for the local community, making this the 46th activation of their ongoing participatory project 70 x 7 The Meal. 

A long table installation for 300 guests overlooked Wadi Hanifah, a seasonal river and caravan route that historically led pilgrims along the valley to the market sustaining them with food and water along the way. The menu was prepared by Chef Hissa Alhuthaili (Suhail) based on local food traditions and interventions by local Saudi artists, botanists, heritage experts, farmers punctuated the evening. The table artworks created by Lucy + Jorge specifically for the occasion included a limited edition of Royal Limoges porcelain plates and hand embroidered table centrepieces that drew attention to the natural fertility of the Wadi Hanifah and the garden city of Riyadh, faced with the encroachment of the urban development and loss of traditional knowledge. Field research on the native local species in collaboration with botanists from NCVC, and on the symbolic meaning of traditional Sadu motifs (Atharna), came together in these table artworks through a lexicon of figurative and abstract geometric shapes to share a new language of resilience.

Special thanks to the National Centre for Vegetation Cover Development & Combating Desertification (NCVC); Dr Dlayel bint Mutlaq bin Shafi Al-Qahtani (Atharna); DBF co-curators Ute Meta Bauer, Wejdan Reda, Anca Rujoiu with curatorial assistants Amina Diab, Dian Arumningtyas, Alanood A. Al-Sudairi.