Virtual Studio Visit: Lucy Orta

  • L Orta 2

    Credit: Refuge Wear – Habitent, 1992-93 Aluminum, coated polyamide, polar fleece, telescopic aluminium poles, whistle, lantern, compass 125 x 125 x 125 cm / Courtesy of Lucy + Jorge Orta

     

  • L Orta portrait
  • L Orta 1

    Durational performance with the film Modular Architecture (1996), 2017 / 56 Artillery Lane group exhibition / Raven Row, London / Photo: Amy Gwatkin

  • L Orta 2

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Past Event


This event was on Wed 19 May, 5 - 6:30pm

Access Information

Join a virtual studio visit with artist Lucy Orta hosted by Whitechapel Gallery’s youth collective, Duchamp & Sons.

Lucy is an artist whose work addresses key social and ecological challenges through making and collaborative working. She uses a wide range of media including drawing, sculpture and performance to visualise relationships between the body and our natural and urban habitats.

Her projects include Refuge Wear / Body Architecture, portable structures that can be transformed into clothing to offer protection from harsh conditions and shelter in emergency situations; Nexus Architecture, performances that shape modular and collective bodies through the metaphor of the social link; Life Guards / Genius Loci, wearable sculpture that question human vulnerability.

Since 2005, she has collaborated with the artist Jorge Orta to co-author Lucy+Jorge Orta. Their collaborative projects interrogate local and global food chains through the ritual of community dining; water scarcity arising from its pollution and corporate control; the effects of climate change on migration; and the value of interwoven ecosystems.

This event will involve:

  • A conversation with Lucy on her practice, processes and influences.
  • A tour of her studio
  • An opportunity to ask questions


This event is free but spaces
 are limited and booking is required.  It will take place on Zoom; attendees will be sent joining instructions ahead of the event. 

Please read our Participation Guidelines before booking. By registering, we expect all attendees to follow the behaviours and guidance set out in the document.


Virtual Studio Visits is a project curated by Whitechapel Gallery’s youth collective, Duchamp & Sons, inviting artists across the globe to share their creative workspaces and practices. Each visit is framed around a specific theme devised by the group including community, sustainability and the environment, music, wellbeing, identity, and representation.

If you have questions about this event, please contact us at duchampandsons@whitechapelgallery.org 

About Lucy Orta

Lucy’s work has been the focus of major exhibitions at the Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France (1994); Weiner Secession, Austria (1999); Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (1999); University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, USA, for which she received the Visual Arts Award from the Andy Warhol Foundation (2001); and at the Barbican Centre, London (2005). She is the youngest female artist to be published in the Phaidon Press contemporary artist collection (2003). Lucy co-founded the Studio Orta with her partner the Argentine artist Jorge Orta, in 1992. They have worked in partnership since 2005 under the co-authorship Lucy + Jorge Orta.

In acknowledgement of her innovative socially engaged research practice Lucy Orta was nominated as Head of Man & Humanity, a pioneering master program for sustainable design, which she cofounded with Li Edelkoort at the Design Academy Eindhoven, in 2002. She has been a Professor at London College of Fashion since 2002 and is currently the Chair of Art and the Environment at the University of the Arts London, where she founded the Art for the Environment Artist in Residency Program. In recognition of her academic contribution to the visual arts, she has received an honorary Master of Arts from Nottingham Trent University and an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Brighton.

studio-orta.com/en

About Duchamp & Sons

Duchamp & Sons is Whitechapel Gallery’s youth collective. They meet regularly to explore art, curate exhibitions, film, music and performance events at Whitechapel Gallery. Their choice of name combines a reference to the artist Marcel Duchamp and to a shop on Whitechapel High Street, Albert & Son.

Find out more about Duchamp & Sons here.