1987, lives and works at São Paulo, SP and Rio de Janeiro, RJ

Julia Retz (Campinas, São Paulo1987) has Graduated at Visual Arts and Design (with specialization in Audio Visual) at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (NL) and has obtained her Master’s degree in Interior Architecture by the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam (NL), in the course Studio for Immediate Spaces. She works at the intersection of visual arts, furniture design, and interior architecture. Through the assembly of diverse components, she creates ‘context sensitive’ installations. Often her practice initiates a conversation with the other as to understand their intentions and desires, resulting in spatial compositions that combine materials and conditions, reflecting the way we experience space. Her work exists in schools, galleries, private homes, and meeting spaces, which can be functional or nonfunctional. She aims to open up and animate a space by transcending an object’s functionality and predeterminate structures. She wants to rethink a classroom, a dining room, and a public space by finding a way beyond the defined role of those spaces. The artist questions how can spaces we inhabit be more inclusive and sensitive to diverse forms of life. She has taken part in international residencies at such as Capacete, Rio de Janeiro (BR), CAVE Gallery, Tokyo (JP), and EEA – European Exchange Academy, Beelitz Heilstätten (DE). Among the exhibitions, she participated are: Flâneuses?, curated by Aurelia Defrance, La Box_ENSA, Bourges (FR); Arte Naïf – Nenhum Museu a Menos curated by Ulisses Carrilho, School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage (EAV), Rio de Janeiro (BR); Design Brazil 21st Century curated by Fernanda Sarmento, Lyceum of Arts and Crafts, São Paulo (BR); Space Proposal – CAVE Gallery, Tokyo (JP); An Apartment for a Gymnastic teacher – Part II, The Office of the Imaginary, Amsterdam (NL); This way Brown – Project Expanded Performance: The City School, The Stroom, Den Haag (NL) among others. She has also taken part in public commissions for furniture design and had her work acquired by the Institute of Choro, Rio de Janeiro (BR) the design and furniture production was supported by the Ministry of Culture of Rio de Janeiro (BR), has also designed the furniture for the Museum’s Cafe of the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, Tallinn (EE) and had her furniture design acquired by the National School of Art in Bourges (FR).