Waste Matter: Public Art and the (Im)Materiality of Post-Colonial Memory
Over the last century, the idea of progress and industrial capitalism have created a climate emergency through the violent extraction of natural resources. This research focuses on lithium mineral extraction taking place in Portugal and the consequences that these activities have for the environment and local communities.
Drawing from Robert Smithson’s notion of ‘ruins-in-reverse’ and ‘abstract geology’, the research takes an interdisciplinary approach by combining geological, archaeological and forensic methods with the act of walking, site writing, object analysis and experimental practice to explore the area where fiction, imagination, and reality blur to reconstruct events through the geological layer and traces left by industrial development in places under extractive colonialism and popular resistance, economic dispute and ecological crisis. The research investigates the relation between waste and spatial justice within the contemporary context of globalisation. Working in sculpture, photography, and public art works, the practice explores the creative and subversive potential of waste to question the intersections between extractive capitalism, colonialism, the Anthropocene, and the climate crisis. Here I suggest that the ways we perceive and relate to waste are informed by the unjust geographies created by colonial legacies that are still present in the city order. The practice also includes the case study ‘Kverndalen in New Light’, in which I concentrate on methods, practices, and possibilities to reinscribe waste with meaning and value in order to propose speculative alternatives for urban regeneration projects in an effort towards material and spatial reconstitution.
The practice research draws from a range of theoretical perspectives and scholarly work to enable a conversation between different approaches to waste, unfolding the scope of their research, methodology and knowledge gaps. This travels from Michel de Certeau’s work (1998) on the relationship between objects, memory and forgetting to explore alternative material forms of remembrance that acknowledges the ‘transience’ of power in the process of ruination (Desilvey, 2017), “waste as ‘matter out of place’” (Douglas, 1966), Waste as ‘matter out of time’” (Viney, 2014; Allon, Barcan & Edison-Cogan, 2021; Foucault’s notion of “heterotopias” as ‘spaces of otherness’, Guttormsen’s ‘deep cities’ framework, 2020), “waste value” (Thompson, 2017), and the use of ‘ruin waste’ (Edensor, 2005; DeSilvey, 2017) as an agent for ‘radical change’ (Franklin & Till, 2018); and Hawkins’s ‘waste as thing’ (2018). The research looks at political ecology, decolonial theory, and urban 13 humanities (Bruna’s ‘green extractivism’ (2022); Yusoff’s ‘white geology’ (2018); Vergés ‘racial Capitalocene’ (2019); Cuff’s “immanent speculation practice” (2020); Soja’s “spatial justice” (2010); and Rendell’s ‘critical spatial practice’ (2002). It also looks at contemporary artistic practices, specifically at Robert Smithson’s work on entropy and Susan Schuppli’s notion of ‘material witness’.
Ultimately, I argue that waste can be understood as an alternative material form with value that has the potential to inspire social change and enable a more sustainable and inclusive ecological future. The research aims, therefore, to address and redefine the role of the artist in the urban policy-making of cities under transformation and industrial development.
Keywords: waste, entropy, space, justice, climate crisis, extractivism
Key details
School, Centre or Area
Supervisors
More about Marisa
Biography
Marisa Ferreira (b. 1983) is a Portuguese artist and researcher based in Oslo and London. She holds a PhD in Arts & Humanities from the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the Sites & Situations Research Lab at the RCA.
Ferreira’s work has been presented in national and international exhibitions, including EcoNarratives of a Trembling Earth at Galeria Presença (PT), On the Most Visible Side of the Images at CACE (PT), As Far as My Eyes Can See – The Expedition Exhibition at Bomuldsfabrikken, Arendal (NO), and Sculpture in the City (UK).
Her practice spans public art commissions and large-scale site-specific projects across Norway, the UK, Ireland, Japan, and the United States. Her work is held in public and private collections, including Stavanger Kunstmuseum (NO), Skatteetaten (NO), REV Ocean (NO), Louis Vuitton (JP/US), The Royal Liverpool University Hospital (UK), the Norlinda and José Lima Collection (PT), the Messmer Foundation (DE), Deloitte (NO), ConocoPhillips (NO), and Wintershall (NO). Ferreira is represented by Galeria Presença, Porto.
Degrees
2020/25: Royal College of Art - London, United Kingdom
Doctor of Philosophy in Arts & Humanities (Practice-led PhD)
2019/20: Royal College of Art - London, United Kingdom
Masters of Research in Arts & Humanities (MRes)
2007/08: Faculdade de Belas-Artes do Porto – FBAUP, Portugal
Art and Design for Public Space
2002/07: Universidade de Évora, Portugal
Visual Arts
Awards
Selected Grants / Awards
2021: "Transition Mirrors" - Merit Award - Educational Building 2021, US
2019: Grant from Bildende Kunstneres Vederlagsfond, 1y
2018: Cultural grant (Kulturstipend) from Asker City Council, Norway
2017: Project support - "Expanded paintings", Bildende Kunstneres Vederlagsfond, Norway 2016: Exhibition grant - Arts Council Norway
2016: Grant from Bildende Kunstneres Vederlagsfond, 1 year, Norway
2015: Project support - "Space, Rhythm and Movement" Kulturrådet - Arts Council Norway 2012: Bildende Kunstneres Vederlagsfond, 1 year, Norway
2011: Statens Kunstnerstipend - diversestipend, Norway
Funding
2022/25: PhD Scholarship, Foundation for Science & Technology (FCT), Portugal 2021
Exhibitions
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2026: Spatial Practices: the Creative Act, CAAA Center for Art and Architecture Affairs, Portugal (upcoming)
2026: EcoNarratives of a Trembling Earth, Galleria Presença, Porto (upcoming)
2025: Deep Wounds, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2022: Notes of a Journey. On Matter, Extractivism and Displacement, w/ Carmen Mariscal, Galeria Presença, Portugal
2022: An Archive of Evidence, Hå Gamle Prestegård, Norway
2019: Urban Landscapes, Messmer Kunsthall, Germany 2018: Primary Structures: A place beyond failure, Galeria Presença, Porto, Portugal
2017: Colour in Space and Time, Bærum Kulturhus, Norway
2017: Space, rhythm & movement, Buskerud Kunstsenter, Norway
2016: Transparency, Reflection and Colour, CAAA Center for Art and Architecture Affairs, Portugal
2015: Space, rhythm & movement, Gallery Messmer Kunsthalle, Germany
2015: Space, rhythm & movement, Galleri Gann, Norway
2014: Constructions on Colour, Galleri BOA, Oslo, Norway. With Susanne Kathlen Mader
2012: Colour + Space, Kunstplass -5, Oslo, Norway
2012: Colour + Form, Galleri Sult, Stavanger, Norway
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2026: Dikemark Kunstbiennial, curated by Tina Skedsmo and Vibeke Christensen, Norway
2025: Traces and Spaces, curated by Constança Bobo, Galleria Presença, Portugal
2024: Spaces of Coalescence, curated by Ludovica Tales as part of "Image Ouverte" at The Window Gallery, Paris
2024: Chasma, curated by Naomi Siderfin and David Crawforth, Beaconsfield Gallery, London, UK
2023: Hoptschoth - RCA Research Biennale, curated by Linn Phyllis Seeger. Copeland Gallery, London, UK.
2022: Unruly Encounters, RCA, Southwark Park Gallery, London, UK
2021: What do we know (anyway)? an art project by JJ Chan at Bloc Projects, Sheffield, UK
2021: As far as my Eyes can Sea, Expedition Exhibition, curated by Åse Kamilla Spjelkavik Aslaksen and Tone Lyngstad Nyaas at Bomuldsfabrikken, Norway
2019: Sculpture in the city, London, UK, curated by Lacuna Projects www.sculptureinthecity.org.uk
2019; 2016; 2014: Øtslandsutstilling, Norway
2014: Post 6290. Innkjøp - del II. Curated by May Johannessen, Helga Nyman and Vibece Salthe, Stavanger Kunstmuseum, Norway
2010: Konstruktive tendencer, Galleri LNM, Oslo, Norway. Curated by Lars Strandh and Susanne Kathlen Mader
Conferences
SELECTED PAPERS - ACADEMIC & ARTISTIC PRACTICE ON PUBLIC ART
Conference paper “Reimagining the city. On Public art, Waste value, and Spatial justice.” Conference: Waste Matters: The Many Afterlives of Junk, June 12-13 2025 in Tempere University, Helsinki, Finland
Planning Committee and panel moderator “Walking and Social Justice” - Symposium “Spaces of Knowledge: Art, Urban Walking, and Empathetic Exchange”, Royal College of Art, London, May 23-24, 2025
Conference paper "Waste Aesthetics in the Urbanocene. On Materiality, Otherness and Spatial Justice" CAA 113th Annual Conference, New York Hilton Midtown, New York City, February 12–15, 2025
Conference paper "Untold Climate Stories. Towards a political understanding of the “white gold” landscapes". Conference Between Landscapes/ New Aesthetics, Faculty of Architecture CTUV, Prague, 23rd-24th October 2024.
Conference paper “Reimagining Public Art through Waste Matter and Spatial Justice”, 6th International Conference Art and the City, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, Germany, June 3rd-5th 2024. Led by Dr Tijen Tunali/ Colombia University, US
Panel discussion on "Art and Sustainability - The role of the artist in the public space", during Arendalsuka, August 2023, Arendal, Norway. Speakers: Kristine K. Wessel, Kurator, Kulturbyrået Mesén; Marisa Ferreira, Artist and Researcher; Sigurd Sverdrup Sandmo, Director of KORO - Public Art Norway; Gunn Marit Christenson, Project leader Kverndalen i nytt lys/ Skien kommune.
Co-organized the interdisciplinary seminar "Art and Sustainability - Waste as Material", Skien, Norway, 29th November 2022 in collaboration with Kulturbyraet Mesen and Skien Municipality. Speakers: Thomas Hylland Eriksen (The Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo), Stella Ioannou (Lacuna and Sculpture in the City, UK), Thor Kamfjord (Norner), Marisa Ferreira (Artist/ Phd-Candidate at Royal College of Art, UK), Hilde Tørdal (Telemark Kunstsenter), Guro Honningdal (Skien kommune), Håvard Nymoen Johansen (Skien kommune), Kristine K. Wessel (Kulturbyrået Mesén) Web https://www.mesen.no/et-seminar-om-gjenbruk-avfall-i-kunstproduksjon
International Conference "Public Art as a Bridge Over Troubled Places", November 17th-18th 2022, Catolica University, Porto, Portugal. Conference paper "Waste Matter as Raw Material for Art production: A Sustainable and Environmental Approach to Contemporary Art Production".
Web: https://artes.porto.ucp.pt/pt-pt/public-art-bridge-over-troubled-places