bio

Paula Damasceno is a transdisciplinary artist and Professor of Media Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Her work intersects expanded photography, performance, video, installation, and creative writing, reimagining the iconographies, myths, and philosophies of Indigenous cultures of the Americas and African Diasporas. She explores sacredness, cultural estrangement, and transcultural (mis)translation through multimodality and the use of organic and synthetic materials.

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In 2025 and 2024, Paula's MFA thesis, "An Island for an Exiled," was exhibited solo at the UNC Gatewood Gallery, NC, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Galleries LRMFA group exhibition. In 2024 her first solo exhibition occurred at the Horace Williams House in Chapel Hill, NC. That same year, she participated in the "Dirty Abstractions" group exhibition at Union Hall in Denver, CO.

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Paula has received several awards, including the D’Art Gallery Conceptual Photography Exhibition Award in 2023, the Hariban Juror’s Choice Award in 2020, and the Silver 2020 Fine Art Award from the Budapest International Photo Award. She has participated in artist residencies in the U.S. at Light Work (2022), Elsewhere Living Museum (2012), and in Mexico at La Casa del Tunel (2010). ​ Her work has been exhibited at the Greensboro Project Space, the Weatherspoon Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Southeastern Center for Photography, with pieces in the collections of Light Work and the Southeastern Center for Photography.

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From 2001 to 2012, Paula worked in Brazil, Germany, France, Vietnam, Mexico, and the United States as a director, project designer, grant writer, researcher, producer, videographer, video editor, and instructor. Her works have been shown at MoMA, the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Docstown International Documentary Film Festival, and the Echo Park Film Center.

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Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Paula earned her BFA in Photography with a minor in Media Studies from the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 2018, an MS in Library and Information Science from UNC Chapel Hill in 2022, and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2024.