Yara Veloso
Multidisciplinary artist based in Rotterdam See CV
Info
In my work I focus on technology as a medium and subject. I take the definition of technology
broadly and holistically (the active human interface with the material world 1), and as such my practice consists of research + material experimentation through diverse media such as code, drawing, video, text, sculpture and textile.
I am interested in the tension between seemingly opposite notions and their (im)possible resolution: virtual and physical, nature and technology, on and off, right and left, light and heavy, day and night, nothing and something, nothing and not nothing (...) a line of inquiry that often takes me to the idea of inbetweeness (whatever "lies between" is called interface, whatever allows us to link two different elements, to reconcile them2).
Alongside my practice I teach a semester-long class of Interactive Media at Artez University of the Arts in Arnhem since 2022 and
have given workshops at Willem de Kooning Academy (Rotterdam, 2022 & 2023), Werkplaats Typografie (Arnhem,
2023), Royal Academy of Art/KABK(The Hague, 2025) and Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam, 2024). In 2024, I
received the grant for emerging artists from the Mondriaan Fond (NL). My ongoing research on binary systems, polarisation and textiles is supported by a research
grant
from the Centre for Visual Arts (CBK) in Rotterdam, NL.
Text
1
For a species in constant development; technology has always provided us with tools to tighten our grip on the world, to make sense of the chaos. Embodying human intervention, its history goes hand-in-hand with the evolution of language: from clay line and finger marks on caves, to cuneiform tablets, up to the written, and even the printed word. Technological advancements of the 20th century have diverted this human evolution in a way, by splitting our world into two parallel and reciprocal entities: the physical and the digital. A fascination with how this exponentially alters our consciousness and our way of being in the world, is at the root of Veloso’s work. Occupied with language and its structuring of our perception, she explores how thought-processes are rewiredthrough the fusion between mankind and computers.Defying a moralistic stance, Veloso is rather intrigued by the awkwardness and clumsiness that sometimes occurs in this encounter. Like observing a first date where an attempted smooth kiss goes wrong, noses bumping into each other. Through humor, she casts a playful eye onto the constructed-ness of those systems that we all have come to take for granted. Systems we can no longer live without, systems we have internalised to the point that they are integral to our functioning. What logic has motivated these inventions? From a sober distance, and especially when in use by large groups of people simultaneously, these “solutions” of human engineering look ratherabsurd. Human evolution, high on a spiked cocktail of steroids. Perhaps the advancement is going too fast? (...)
Veloso considers technological add-ons as new extensions of our senses. They envelop and slowly suffocate us in a tightly wrapped filter. Being the new architecture of our society, they don’t only run parallel to the physical world, but are exceedingly intertwined with it. Weird-looking ergonomic inventions are another recurring motif in Veloso’s work, often blown up into grotesque proportions. A phone on our arm recording our heartbeat and itinerary whilst running, is turned into a bulky iPad strapped to the pillars of a building in Hug (2021). The ideal positioning for hands on a keyboard deviates into new iconography in the way things are going (2022), referring to John Ruskins’ statement that whilst drawing, a line should always have a destination. And so asks the artist, what direction are we going? From a distance and isolated from their everyday use, these inventions and rules look so random. Qwerty or Azerty? It’s all very confusing.
Excerpt from text by Evelyn Simons
2
Yara's interest in technology seems to be placed not on the conventional question of what it can do, but rather on how it contributes to how we access and assimilate the world. Looking at technology as it works rather than what it produces seems to be the angle with which Yara engages and develops her line of work. In her research, Yara often delves deep, taking it to an elemental basis, to build up from a basic, levelled line of understanding. Her work investigates technology as a coping mechanism with reality and demonstrates how it can act as a way to reveal the things that might lie beyond the first lines of understanding. Her work is often objective yet it is infused with a poetic feeling as she relates and makes connections between fragments of thought. Despite employing a reason-first approach, she makes space for poetry and the unexpected beauty found in how things come together (even if by chance).Yara's work counteracts the conventional assumption that technology must work at the edge of progress to present new possibilities. As she demonstrates, technology even at the most rudimentary level (such as writing or doodling) can lead to a whole new range of awareness. Her latest video work takes the line as a starting point and expands on its significance as a unit of understanding. In the work, lines appear in the world, not as an object's static boundaries, but as a modulative, unfixed guide for assimilation. It is how the world appears at a given moment, but not as it stays. Yara's practice is just as modulative and open, as it continues to develop new methods of gathering and instilling knowledge, balancing positive ambition with -and as a way to cope with-the dreary reality.
Text by Mariana Lobão
CV
Education
Forbidden Knowledge: Introduction to Esotericism
Winter School, University of Amsterdam, 2025
Werkplaats Typografie (Artez), Arnhem, NL
MA in Fine Arts & Design, 2022
Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague
BA in Graphic Design, 2017
École Cantonale D’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Exchange in Visual Communication – Spring 2015
Camberwell College of Arts (University of the Arts London)
Foundation in Art & Design – 2011 - 2012
Escola Secundária Artística Antóinio Arroio
Arts High School, LisbonExhibitions
Open Studio (Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend)
with Anna Bierler at Het Archief, Rotterdam – September 2024
Phenomena
Group show with Isabelle Andriessen, Annabelle Binnerts, Aline Bouvy, Jim Campers, Max Hooper Schneider, Barbara Leclercq, Xavier Mary, Stijn ter Braak, Jenkin van Zyl, Nicolas Zanoni and Simon Hampikian curated by Elders Collectief, Kortrijk (Belgium) – March 2024
Al Dente
Group show with Micha Prinsen, Joost Vermeer Dagmar Pouwelse, Jelmer Konjo and Lana Mesić W1555 Project Space, Rotterdam – February 2024
Meal Prep
Group show curated by Eva van Bemmelen at 2Walls, Amsterdam – January 2024
Phenomena 1.0
Group show with Simon Hampikian, Nicolas Zanoni, Xavier Mary and the Curator Machine, part of Wonder Festival and Kotrijk Art Weekend – Kortrijk (Belgium) – October-November 2023
Open Studio (Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend)
with Claire van Lubeek, September 2023
Table of Futile Evenings
Group exhibition, ISO Amsterdam – July 2022
the way things are going
Solo presentation at The Box, Werkplaats Typografie – June 2022
Zero Player
Group exhibition in collaboration with Fred Cave, Joe Cave, Sylvain Couzinet-Jacques Galerie du Crous, Paris – November 2021
Latent Space
Group exhibition Het Hem, Zaandam – September 2021
TOT HIER EN WEER VERDER
Group exhibition with Raquel Vermunt, Micha Prinsen, Maurice Meewisse, Joep Brouwer, Ivan Winter and Katinka van Gorkum, curated by Selma Hengeveld – Rotterdam, December 2020
What Happened to the Future?
with Vera van de Seyp at Kunsthal Rotterdam Comissioned by Poetry International – May 2019Residencies
Phenomena
Organised by DesignRegio Kortrijk & Elders Collectief September – November 2023, Kortrijk, Belgium
TOT HIER EN WEER VERDER
Three day residency and group exhibition curated by Selma Hengeveld - Rotterdam, December 2020Honours
Impulse & Deepening
2024/2025, Research grant, Centrum voor Beldende Kunst Rotterdam (CBK)
Artist Start
2024/2025, Stipedium for emergenging artists, Mondriaan Fonds (NL)Practical Grant
October 2023, Centrum voor Beldende Kunst Rotterdam (CBK)
Makersloket
2021/2022 project grant, Stichting Droom en Daad
Stipendium for Artist Initiatives
2019/2020 for Trixie The Hague (group), Mondriaan Fonds (NL)Publications
Version Space
Kite in conversation with Yara Veloso and Alexander Tanazefti Edited by Angie Keefer and published by Library Stack, 2022
📖 1K. Le Guin, Ursula. “A Rant about ‘Techonolgy.” Ursula K. Le Guin, 2005, www.ursulakleguin.com/a-rant-about-technology.
2Gianni Barbacetto, and Achille Castiglioni. Design Interface. Arcadia (Milano), 1987.