Catarina Simão is an artist and researcher living and working between Maputo and Lisbon. Her practice builds upon long-term research projects that entail collaborative partnerships and different forms of presentation to the public. Simão is known for her essay-like displays, using documentation, writing, video and drawing. She also engages in radio shows and public talks, participatory workshops, curating film screenings and publishing.
Since 2009, Simão has worked with the notion of Archive, engaging primarily with Mozambique’s colonial and anti-colonial history. Heavily influenced by narratives of history, Simão approaches critically the counterpart of record’s custody, their mutable meanings and their ability to embody a deferred knowledge. She works mainly with film and video sets in installation but also uses other figurative elements like photography, textbooks, drawing and sound. Simão’s work was presented at Serralves Museum, Manifesta 8, Africa.cont, Reina Sofia Museum, Ashkal Alwan, New Museum, The Kyiv School, E.V.A. International, Transit Gallery, Garage Museum and I.A.S.P.I.S., among others.
In Mozambique, Simão develops conditions for an artistic intervention within a social context by collaborating with local associations and institutions. She co-directed a Mozambique T.V. film called Djambo in 2016, and in 2019 she co-organized together with Oficina de História (Mozambique) the 1st Seminar on Restitution of art and artefacts to Mozambique (C.C.F.M., May 2019). Since February 2020, she has been co-editor of “Lutar Por Cabo Delgado”, a Facebook page dedicated to composing an archive of filtered information and imagery on the ongoing war in Cabo Delgado, in the North of Mozambique.
Since 2020, Simão has been a member and part of the founding committee of A.A.V.P. – Associação de Artistas Visuais em Portugal, the organization for visual artists in Portugal.
