Artist Name: Debora Hirsch
Dates: June – July 2025
Hometown: São Paulo, Brazil
Lives & Works: Milan, Italy
URL: deborahirschstudio.com | Instagram @deborahirsch
Education:
MSc in Industrial Engineering from the University of São Paulo, Brazil
MBA from SDA Bocconi, Italy
Bio/Statement:
Debora Hirsch is a visual artist whose work focuses on biodiversity preservation and endangered species, contemporary anthropology, and the influence of media and technology on culture and society. Her research-based practice often explores the lingering impact of colonial histories and the evolving relationship between humans and the plant world. In seeking to restore the complexity of the real, her artworks draw on multiple references—botanical, ecological, historical, and cultural. Progressing by associations and deductions is her favored method in producing paintings, videos, digital works, and installations. Her pieces often appear as elaborate snapshots of an ongoing inquiry, blending reinterpretations, theoretical reflections, and speculative visions.
Born in São Paulo and based in Milan, Hirsch holds an MSc in Industrial Engineering from the University of São Paulo and an MBA from SDA Bocconi. She has been an artist-in-residence at Residency Unlimited and AnnexB in New York and was nominated for the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation’s Grants and Commissions Program. She has lectured at institutions including Bocconi University, Accademia di Brera, Università Statale di Milano, John Cabot University, Gallerie d’Italia, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Milan, New York Botanical Garden, and Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary in New York.
Her work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions mainly across Europe, the United States, and Brazil, including these recent exhibitions: Il respiro della Natura, GAM, Palazzo della Ragione, Verona (2025); Sylva: Coding Nature, commissioned by American Express, Milano (2025); Herbaria, Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary, New York (2024); Echoes of the Mediterranean, Nexus Project, Torre Piacentini, Genoa (2024); Plantalia, Museo Villa Bernasconi, Cernobbio (2023-2024); Raggio Verde, Museo Santa Maria Della Scala and Museo Botanico dell’Università di Siena, Siena (2023).
Debora is currently mentored by Lucas Mertehikian, Director of the Humanities Institute at the New York Botanical Garden, with support from Hutchinson Modern & Contemporary.
