I am Felipe Shibuya, a Brazilian ecologist and visual artist who decided to adventure around the world. My journey began when I finished my Ph.D. in Ecology and Nature Conservation at the Federal University of Paraná. I then decided to explore the visual aspects I had included in my research, beyond the purely scientific perspective. I have an M.F.A. in Studio Art at The State University of New York at Buffalo, in which I worked with pigmented bacteria, with the intention of understanding how the colors synthesized by them may be communication signals for us humans. Currently, I am the Hyundai Biological Programs Fellow at Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab, and Critic in the Architecture and Furniture Departments at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Being a scientist-artist, enables me to explore different forms of life, from bacteria to trees, using different methods, from microbiological culture to videos. However, all of my work involves aspects of my own identity, and I always highlight the visuality of nature. I have had the opportunity to show my work in the United States, Canada, Portugal, Germany and Spain, as well as had citations published in important magazines and journals such as National Geographic, Citylab, and Ecology.
EDUCATION
2019–2021 · M.F.A. Studio Art, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
2012–2016 · Ph.D. Ecology and Nature Conservation, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
2010–2012 · M.S. Ecology and Nature Conservation, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
2004–2008 · B.S. Biological Science, Unifieo, Brazil
EXPERIENCE
RESEARCH
2021–pres · Hyundai Biological Programs Fellow, Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab at RISD, USA
2015–2016 · Visiting Researcher, University of Coimbra, Portugal
2012–2013 · Associate Researcher, Mater Natura, Brazil
2010–2016 · M.S. and Ph.D. Candidate, Federal University of Paraná, Brazil
TEACHING
2023–pres · Critic, Rhode Island School of Design, USA
2019–2021 · Teaching Assistant, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
2019–2021 · Laboratory Teaching Assistant, Coalesce: Center for Biological Art, USA
REVIEWER
2021–pres · Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research
2018–pres · Ornitología Neotropical
RESIDENCIES
2022 · Arteria_Lab + Cultivamos Cultura, Portugal
2020 · School of Visual Arts, USA
2018 · Cultivamos Cultura, Portugal
AWARDS
2018 · Winner gold: Most Beautiful Visualization. The Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards
2018 · Winner gold: People, Language & Identity. The Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2022 · Collapse
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA
2022 · Alter(acción) 2.0
Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo, Badajoz, Spain
2021 · Alter(action)
Fundação Eugénio de Almeida, Évora, Portugal
2021 · Invisibilia
El Museo Francisco Oller y Diego Rivera, Buffalo, USA
2021 · Comunidades Visibles: The Materiality of Migration
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, USA
2021 · Black Cherry
Buffalo Arts Studio, Buffalo, USA
2021 · Proximal Spaces
DesignTO Festival, Toronto, Canada
2020 · Palimpsesto
Museu Municipal de Penafiel, Penafiel, Portugal
2019 · Who We Are
Museum of the City of New York, New York, USA
2018 · Naturalizing Immigration
Northeastern Center for the Arts, Boston, USA
2018 · Presente Futuro: Design Para a Mudança
Museu do Design e da Moda, Lisbon, Portugal
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS
2023 · Climate change: changing scales
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA
2022 · Why biomaterials are important for artistic practices
III FEMeeting – Women in Art, Science and Technology, Évora, Portugal
2021 · Becoming (in)visible
Taipei National University of the Arts, Taipei, Taiwan
2021 · Good sex: art, science and reproduction
Royal College of Art, London, UK
2020 · Ah, squoosh it: decolonizing the colon
IV Taboo, Transgression and Transcendence in Art & Science, Vienna, Austria
2020 · Flying on my own
26th International Symposium on Electronic Art: Why Sentience?, Montreal, Canada
2020 · (In)visible
Coalesce: Disperse–reports from the laboratory, Buffalo, USA
2019 · Dendrochronology of immigrants in the US
Global Community Bio Summit 3.0, Cambridge, USA
2019 · Representando a imigração nos Estados Unidos como anéis de crescimento em árvores
Ministério da Saúde - Departamento de Ciência e Tecnologia, Brasília, Brazil
2018 · The animal hummingbird
III Taboo, Transgression and Transcendence in Art & Science, Mexico City, Mexico
2018 · Other colors
II Trans-disciplinary & Trans-national Festival of Art & Science, New York, USA
2015 · Temporal changes in body condition correlated among species in hummingbird assemblages?
X Neotropical Ornithological Congress, Manaus, Brazil
2015 · Are monochromatic female and male hummingbirds really identical?
Behavioural Ecology Group of CIBIO, Porto, Portugal
2011 · The nest of the Rufous Hornero (Furnarius rufus) is an incubation chamber that does not work very well
IX Neotropical Ornithological Congress, Cuzco, Peru
2011 · Getting even: how the sexes divide reproductive costs in the Rufous Hornero (Furnarius rufus)
IX Neotropical Ornithological Congress, Cuzco, Peru
2011 · Subtropical breeding patterns illuminate life-history theory
IX Neotropical Ornithological Congress, Cuzco, Peru