Caroline Ricca Lee (b. 1990, São Paulo)
Artist and researcher whose practice explores the archiving, history, fiction, and memory of Asian narratives through decolonial, queer, and feminist epistemologies. Works with sculpture, installation, critical writing, performance, and video.
Addresses an unofficial memory preserved in alternative documentation such as personal histories, ancestral memorabilia, family photographs, and corporeal cartographies. The household becomes an extension of an imagined motherland. Lee examines both the home and the body as alternative museums, questioning how meanings attributed to non-hegemonic legacies, domestic objects, and marginalized artistic practices (such as textiles and ceramics) are appropriated in the History of Art, often through the lenses of race, gender, sexuality, nation, and generation.
The syncretic gaze of their production reveals a repertoire in which Asian ancestry, Brazilian culture, and the unsolved legacy of European colonialism collide to create a noisy body of work inherent to the tapestry of a multicultural and diasporic identity. By object-making, Lee re-embodies and symbolizes an ancestral unspeakable, thus reclaiming an alternative collective memory through speculative fiction.
Awardee of the ISOLA SICILIA Prize at the 30th Artissima Art Fair, Torino (2023). Recipient of The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia South America in 2025. Artist-in-residence at Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Waldberta, Germany (2016); Fondazione Oelle, Italy (2023); Pivô Art and Research, Brazil (2024); IASPIS, Sweden (2025); La Becque, Switzerland (2025).
For more information:
contact@carolinericcalee.com
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01046-913 São Paulo, Brazil
T +55 11 3237 3247
contato (at) vervegaleria.com
Artist and researcher whose practice explores the archiving, history, fiction, and memory of Asian narratives through decolonial, queer, and feminist epistemologies. Works with sculpture, installation, critical writing, performance, and video.
Addresses an unofficial memory preserved in alternative documentation such as personal histories, ancestral memorabilia, family photographs, and corporeal cartographies. The household becomes an extension of an imagined motherland. Lee examines both the home and the body as alternative museums, questioning how meanings attributed to non-hegemonic legacies, domestic objects, and marginalized artistic practices (such as textiles and ceramics) are appropriated in the History of Art, often through the lenses of race, gender, sexuality, nation, and generation.
The syncretic gaze of their production reveals a repertoire in which Asian ancestry, Brazilian culture, and the unsolved legacy of European colonialism collide to create a noisy body of work inherent to the tapestry of a multicultural and diasporic identity. By object-making, Lee re-embodies and symbolizes an ancestral unspeakable, thus reclaiming an alternative collective memory through speculative fiction.
Awardee of the ISOLA SICILIA Prize at the 30th Artissima Art Fair, Torino (2023). Recipient of The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia South America in 2025. Artist-in-residence at Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Waldberta, Germany (2016); Fondazione Oelle, Italy (2023); Pivô Art and Research, Brazil (2024); IASPIS, Sweden (2025); La Becque, Switzerland (2025).
For more information:
contact@carolinericcalee.com
Verve (São Paulo, Brazil)
Avenida São Luis, 192 SL0601046-913 São Paulo, Brazil
T +55 11 3237 3247
contato (at) vervegaleria.com
EDUCATION
2020—2021
2009—2012
2020—2021
2009—2012
PRIZES / RESIDENCIES
2025
2024
2023
2022
2016
Researcher, Program in Social Anthropology (PPGAS-USP), University of São Paulo, Brazil
Researcher, Center for Studies on Social Markers of Difference at the University of São Paulo, Brazil
B.A. in Fashion Design, Santa Marcelina University of São Paulo, Brazil
Art residency, La Becque, La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland
Art residency, IASPIS, Stockholm, Sweden
Grant, The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Zurich, Switzerland
Art residency, Pivô Art and Research, São Paulo, Brazil
Art residency, Fondazione Oelle, Sicily, Italy
Prize, ISOLA SICILIA 2023, Artissima Art Fair, Turim, Italy
Shortlist, National Contemporary Art Award, PIPA Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Fellow, Against the Grain, Futuress, Basel, Switzerland
Shortlist, 7th Crystal Ruth Bell, China Residencies, Beijing, China
Art residency, Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Waldberta, Munich, Germany
CHAPTER / ARTICLES
2024
2022
2021
2020
2018
2024
2022
2021
2020
2018
Chapter, Asian Feminism in Brazil: race, gender and generation, The "Yellow Perill" in present times: reflections of a new generation, Selo Caminhos, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Article, MOTHER/land — Body-cartographies of Race and Gender in the Asian-Brazilian Identity”, 6th Annual Symposium of Latin American Art: “Movement & Presence: The Visual Culture of the Americas”, The Institute of Fine Arts at New York University, The Graduate Center at the City University of New York, Columbia University in the City of New York, and the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), New York, EUA
Article, Between the "model minority" and the "Chinese virus", what is left to us? — Reflections on COVID-19, xenophobia and geopolitics, Coronavirus: Decolonial reflections, UNESCO, Balão Editorial, São Paulo, Brazil
Article, Asian feminism: culture of silence, double patriarchies and racial discussion in times of COVID-19, National Association of Graduate Studies and Research in Social Sciences (Anpocs), São Paulo, Brazil
Chapter, Asian Feminism, Feminist explosion: Art, culture, politics and university, Companhia das Letras, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
COLLECTIONS
2024
SOLO SHOWS
2025
2024
GROUP SHOWS / SELECTION
2025
2024
2023
2024
SOLO SHOWS
2025
2024
GROUP SHOWS / SELECTION
2025
2024
2023
2022
2021
2019
2016
ART FAIR / SELECTION
2025
2024
2023
2022
2025
2024
2023
2022
Renato Alpegiani Collection, Turim, Italy
Fondazione Oelle Collection, Sicily, Italy
How do we rest at risk?, Pivô, São Paulo, Brazil
Recollection of Dreams, Tube Cultural Hall, Milan, Italy
Echoes, Artissima Fair, Turim, Italy
MOTHER/land, Cultural Center of São Paulo, Brazil
O ouro e a Madeira, Quadra Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
The Appearance: Art of the Asian Diaspora in Latin America & the Caribbean, America's Society, New York, EUA
Cuir sou, Verve Gallery, São Paulo, Brazi
Porvir, Gruta Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
terra abrecaminhos, SESC Pompéia, São Paulo, Brazil
From flight to nostrils, breathe, arms wide, messages in the wind, HOA Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
1st National Contemporary Art Hall of Goiás, Museum of Contemporary Art, Goiânia, Brazil
We live for this, Ateliê 397 & Vermelho Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
World-sensing, Despace, Berlin, Germany
31° Exhibition Program, Cultural Center of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
The night will never fall asleep in our eyes, Baró Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
Okkupation Projeto, Die Färberei München, Munich, Germany
Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China SP-Arte, São Paulo, Brazil
Artissima, Turim, Italy
Rotas Brasileiras, São Paulo, Brazil
Artissima, Turim, Italy
SP-Arte, São Paulo, Brazil
ArtRio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
MASTERCLASS / WORKSHOP
2025
2024
2023
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2024
2023
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
Masterclass, Index, The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden
Lecture, Iaspis, International Visual and Applied Arts Programme, Stockholm, Sweden
Masterclass, Scuola di Scultura, Academia di Belle Arti Catania, Sicily, Italy
Masterclass, Scuola di Scultura, Academia di Belle Arti Palermo, Sicily, Italy
Masterclass, Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, University of Catania, Sicily, Italy
Workshop, Chinese Contemporary Art and Thinking, Pinacoteca Museum, São Paulo, Brazil
Workshop, Another Histories of Art: Asia, Ateliê 387, São Paulo, Brazil
Masterclass, Parque Lage School of Visual Arts, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Seminar, Intersectionality and Asian-Brazilian Feminism, Social Anthropology (PPGAS-USP), University of São Paulo, Brazil
Seminar, Racial perspectives in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, XVIII Week of International Relations, PUC, São Paulo, Brazil
Seminar, Political perspectives on Asian identities, Center for Studies on Social Markers of Difference (NUMAS-USP), University of São Paulo, Brazil
Seminar, Asian feminism, East-Asian Brazilian studies: Representations, intersectionality and geopolitics, Research and Training Center SESC, São Paulo, Brazil
Seminar, Intersectional Asian feminism, University of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU-USP), University of São Paulo, Brazil