River drawings
Jéssica Pereira Gaspar


Jéssica Pereira Gaspar is a Portuguese transdisciplinary artist, born in Coimbra in 1996. She began her academic journey in sciences and technologies, which profoundly influenced her methodology, research focus, and creative practice. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Visual Arts from Universidade Lusófona de Lisboa and her Master's degree in Visual Arts from Escola Superior de Artes e Design das Caldas da Rainha.Currently, she is pursuing a PhD in Science and Technology of the Arts at the Catholic University of Porto, where she is developing research on interfaces for interspecies communication and artistic co-creation with different organisms.Her practice centers on interactions with other-than-human entities and their dynamic agency, seeking to unravel the intricate relationships between living organisms and matter. By integrating multiple mediums such as image, video, sound, and organic materials as catalysts for immersive experiences, her work creates a space for reflection on the interconnectedness of all entities. In 2022, she was awarded a scholarship for an art residency at RAMA, where she developed the solo exhibition Spectacular Instability. She also participated in Zonas deTransição (2023), a project by the PLMJ Foundation, showcasing Transmutations II, a piece later included in the foundation's collection. Her work has been featured in group exhibitions such as A Certain Practice of Attention (2023) and the XXII Biennial of Cerveira (2022). In 2024, her work was included in the Portuguese Emerging Art book, the Millennium BCP Young Art Award from which she was awarded the Portuguese Serigraphy Center Award.In 2025, she was one of the five artists to be selected to represent Porto and Ci.clo Platform in Futures Photography Festival of 2025.
Symbiophone
Refractions
Cells
Drawing inspiration from Walter Benjamin’s ideas on mechanical reproduction and perception, this work investigates how digital apparatuses can expand our sensory
capabilities. The camera, or other technological devices, become an extension of vision, unveiling layers of reality beyond what the naked eye perceives. Just as microscopy revealed hidden worlds, digital tools allow us to see alternative structures in the everyday, emphasizing the interplay between the organic and the artificial. This project explores how ordinary objects, when seen from new perspectives, can resemble microscopic organisms, revealing reality as an interconnected pattern. The images challenge our perception of the mundane by transforming the familiar into something that can resemble a living cell in a process of division.
The distorted images evoke cell structures, bacteria, or even embryonic forms, questioning the boundaries between the micro and macro, natural and artificial. The contrast between organic-looking shapes and technological intervention invites viewers to reconsider how we define life, perception, and materiality. By manipulating perspective, light, and movement through usage of digital tools, Cells encourages a deeper reflection on how the mechanisms of perception shape our understanding of the world. The project seeks to bridge scientific observation with artistic experimentation, revealing a hidden continuity between the visible and the imperceptible.