Joana Vasconcelos was born in Paris, France, in 1971, and lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. One of the most internationally recognized contemporary Portuguese artists, she develops a multidisciplinary practice spanning sculpture, installation, textiles, ceramics, light, sound, and monumental public interventions.

Her work is based on the appropriation and transformation of everyday objects, often associated with domestic life, craft, popular culture, and consumption, which she reconfigures into exuberant sculptures combining humor, social critique, and reflections on gender, collective identity, and cultural hierarchies. Using materials such as crochet, embroidery, textiles, tiles, ceramics, household appliances, LED lights, and industrial structures, Vasconcelos creates dialogues between Portuguese craft traditions and global contemporary culture, bringing decorative and popular practices into the realm of monumental art.

She has participated in major international exhibitions, including the 51st Venice Biennale in 2005, where she presented A Noiva; represented Portugal at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013; and held a solo exhibition at the Palace of Versailles in 2012, becoming the youngest artist and the first woman to present a solo exhibition there. She has also exhibited at institutions including the Guggenheim Bilbao, Serralves, Kunsthal Rotterdam, Manchester Art Gallery, Palazzo Grassi, MAAT, and Le Bon Marché in Paris.

Her work is held in important public and institutional collections, including the Centre Pompidou — Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris and Fundação EDP / MAAT in Lisbon, as well as major public and private collections internationally.