BIO – JONATHAN:
I am Jonathan Nunes, a cultural producer, designer, and researcher born and raised in the Complexo do Alemão, in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro. My journey with culture began early, during high school, when I completed a Technical Degree in Audiovisual Production at the Adolpho Bloch State Technical School between 2007 and 2009. At the same time, I participated in the Nós do Cinema project, a popular audiovisual school that taught me that telling stories can be a strategy for resistance, visibility, and social transformation.
Between 2008 and 2011, I worked as a production assistant at festivals such as Panorama de Dança and the Brazilian University Film Festival (FBCU). In the theater, I contributed to the production of plays such as “Náufragos da Louca Esperança” (2011), directed by Ariane Mnouchkine with Théâtre du Soleil; “A Menina do Dedo Torto” (2016), directed by Pedro Brício; and “Cérebro Coração” (2018), written by Mariana Lima and directed by Enrique Diaz and Renato Linhares, nominated for the Shell Award.
In 2006, still a teenager, I had my first international experience by teaching an audiovisual workshop for teenagers in a public school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This project was an initiative of Nós do Cinema, supported by the Brazilian Embassy in Argentina and the Fundación Kine Cultural y Educativa. This experience deepened my interest in pedagogical processes and collaborative creation across different cultural contexts and strengthened my connection with Latin American cultural networks.
I hold a degree in Design from ESDI/UERJ, with a complementary degree in Fine Arts from Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Canada, where I lived for 19 months between 2014 and 2015, through the Science Without Borders program. This international experience provided me with fluency in English and direct contact with multicultural artistic production contexts. I also have a strong command of Spanish, developed through academic, professional, and cultural exchanges across Latin America.
During my Master’s in Design (2021–2023), I mapped peripheral artists from the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro who navigate between the fields of art and design. As part of this process, I conceived the TOCA artistic residency, held in 2021 at the Rato collective, in partnership with the Trovoa collective. Currently, as a Ph.D. candidate in Design at ESDI/UERJ, I am part of the Design and Anthropology Laboratory (LaDA-Esdi), deepening a research project on community-based memory preservation practices in peripheral territories, focusing on initiatives like Museu dos Meninos in Complexo do Alemão and Acervo da Laje in Salvador.
Since 2016, I have been the Studio Manager at artist Raul Mourão’s studio, leading an eight-person team and overseeing all stages of production for his artworks and exhibitions in Brazil, the United States, and Europe. I have produced 16 solo exhibitions and collaborated on more than 35 group shows. My work spans team management, international art logistics, institutional relations, budget management, editorial production, and strategic communication.
Additionally, I have been a member of the Rato collective since 2016, where I have produced and developed projects like Rato Recebe, Baile BloKo, among others. In 2022 and 2023, I served as curator, producer, and graphic designer for both editions of the Códigos Negros project, promoted by Olabi with support from the Museu do Amanhã and Rato, fostering exchanges between art, technology, and Black cultural production from a territorial and network-based perspective.
My practice is guided by attentive listening to the places and people I work with, by my ability to articulate networks, and by a commitment to building narratives that expand repertoires and give visibility to often marginalized stories
