Pronouns: they/them
Marisa works in creative and cultural community development in Meanjin/Brisbane. Their current practice is concerned with how to artfully navigate contemporary oppressions which affect how our social and material landscapes look and feel. To do so, they draw broadly from aesthetic theory, transformative social change, and therapeutic or spiritual modalities. They work across disciplines such as improvisational performance, social practice, publishing and installation inside and outside institutions, and often collaboratively. They like toolkits, textures, sensory elements, social/systemic pattern recognitions, personal enquiries and candid conversations that get beneath.
Marisa recently completed a Master of Social Work at the Queensland University of Technology. In 2021, they undertook a research placement with the Social Justice and Activist Research Centre (SJARC), investigating the aesthetics of capitalist phenomena, immaterial labour and the production structures of the arts industry. They subsequently undertook a practice placement with 4ZZZ community radio, co-creating an anti-oppressive response to interpersonal conflict, discord and harm that incorporates community and organisational development through the process.
From 2016-2019, Marisa was co-founder and co-director of people+artist+place; an arts initiative that focuses on the production of live, site-specific and socially-engaged public art. They are a founding and current member of the ARI currently known as Brisbane Visual Arts Advocacy (BVAA); an initiative which supports and advocates for artist-run and artist-centred activity.
Their outlet is performing at techno gigs under the pseudonym algal__bloom: a mostly mammalian but often plant-based being that moves for still-possible futures. They also publish their own writing on art and capitalism on their blog FULL SATURATION.