Mariana Arda waas raised in a picturesque village in the Southwest of Portugal, attributing her artistic sensitivity to the simplicity of that rural upbringing. It was only during her master’s degree in Architecture, in cities such as Lisbon and Venice, that she began developing her artistic expression.

She uses an approach that involves storytelling through hybrid handcrafted processes, such as drawing, painting, collage, and video making. Delving into stories that shape society fuels her work; she believes that in the existence of the small forgotten fragments of reality, there’s the key to creating and sharing narratives that, though not new, demand retelling.