Francisca Cardoso Patrocínio (b. 1999) is a Portuguese multidisciplinary artist, cultural worker and curator based in Zurich, Switzerland.
Born in Porto, Portugal, on the Northern coastal part of the country, she has origins from the South of Portugal from the fathers side.
She completed her Master's Degree in Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), in Switzerland, and was part of the What's Next program from Z-Kubator, supported by the Stadt Zurich and Righini Fries Foundation.
F. holds a Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts, in the field of Sculpture, at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto. During her studies in Fine Arts in Porto, she had the possibility to developed her own personal explorations as an artist, questioning her role as such, while taking part into a program that gave her a solid foundation working both individually and collectively. Under the Erasmus Studies Program, she studied in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, in Austria, in the class of Performance Art. During this time abroad she took classes in Performative Techniques connected to Theatre and Acting, and Art in the Public Space. She finished her high School Education in the Artistic School Soares dos Reis, in Porto, specializing in Artistic Production, Printmaking and Silkscreen Printing. This early training shaped her relationship with artistic production through different materials and techniques, in particular with printed matter, and gave her knowledge in different printing processes used throughout history, namely Silkscreen printing and Etching, as well as book making, through an artistic approach.
Francisca's multi-disciplinary artistic practice addresses the concepts of nature and culture, exploring the notions of language, communication, personal and collective memory. Through research and experimentation, she creates tangible artistic pieces, mostly in the mediums of sculpture, installation and in media such as photography and video, that reflect about life, the human condition and the various dimensions that shape our existences: social, political, material, bodily, and others.
In her artistic practice, she works individually and in collectives and holds different roles in the arts, expanding her practice as an artist to other ways of creating: curating, publishing, researching and writing.
She has been exhibited in various exhibitions, to name "The Grand Tiger Hotel", at offspace Hotel Tiger, "Of Each Absence" at ETH Klimarunde, "Wounded and healing waters", at OnCurating Space, in Switzerland; "Assembleia das Plantas" at Galeria Municipal do Porto (GMP), the Biennial of Contemporary Textile Art, in Guimarães, in Portugal; and "yHbrid Spaces" at FLUC Vienna, in Austria.