Natan Diacon-Furtado

Natan (all pronouns) crafts open-source tools and collaborative projects that expand notions of ancestry and self through pattern-making and projection. Their work engages Brazilian “gambiarra” improvisatory repair culture and folk do-it-yourself practices of “making-do” to forge free and accessible technologies that recover and project other(ed) ancestral imaginations through light and sound. Natan collaborates with communities of all ages, abilities, materialities and means to recuperate and integrate lost patterns of being and senses of self, transforming the spaces around and within us.

Trained as an anthropologist, architect, electronic artist and public interest designer, their public commissions include an upcoming large-scale permanent installation for the city of Pittsburgh’s Lower Hill neighborhood redevelopment; with temporary installations for the city of Troy, NY and Governor’s Island in New York City. Visiting artist, artist-in-residence and fellowship positions include Parsons School of Design, Montgomery College, Indiana University, and Ball State University; residencies at Aomori Contemporary Art Centre and Joan Mitchell Foundation, and upcoming participation in the first Wave Farm Sound Art Transmission Tool Kit Cohort. 

They have been the subject of two solo museum shows, at Aomori Contemporary Art Centre and Indiana University’s Wiley House Museum, with additional exhibitions at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Delft Architectural Biennial, and Buenos Aires Biennale of Architecture. In addition, their design work has been named one of the “World’s Greatest Places” by TIME Magazine.