Joana is an artist, researcher and educator; she was born and grew up in a small village in northern Portugal.
She studied Sculpture (2003) at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto, where she also completed a Master’s degree in Drawing and Printmaking (2009). Joana holds a teaching qualification: a Master’s degree in the Teaching of Visual Arts (2011). In 2021, she obtained a PhD in Fine Art Print from the Royal College of Art in London.
For nearly a decade Joana taught in the state sector, teaching a range of subjects within the visual arts field. In 2009 and 2017 she held short-term appointments at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto, where she taught Printmaking. She has lectured internationally since 2009 at institutions that include USP, UNESP and Centro Universitário Belas Artes de São Paulo in Brazil; the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto in Portugal, and the Royal College of Art, University for the Creative Arts, De Montfort University, Liverpool Hope University, Bath Spa University and the University of Huddersfield in the United Kingdom.
Entitled Mute Legacies: Silent Practices of Resilience, Joana’s doctoral thesis examines the potentiality of silence to transform and to operate as a form of resilience through art. She incorporates autobiographical elements, combining perspectives from philosophy, literature, film theory and contemporary art. In particular, she looks at the notion of legacy as an invisible burden that is carried both individually and collectively, while also tackling wider questions about the intersection between the private and public spheres, providing through this an original reflection on the ways in which politics impacts on the body.
Joana’s research interests include the politics of methods and materials, social inequality and privilege, intangible heritage, and feminism. Her ongoing research focuses on the role of autobiography in contesting oppressive and dominant narratives, and on the relationship between poverty and authoritarian political regimes.