TAL | Tech Art Lab, Rio
A Platform for Transdisciplinary Practice
Digital Provocateurs, The Wrong New Digital Art Biennale, Cidade das Artes, Rio de Janeiro, 2018. Installation view. Image: The Wrong Biennale
Founded in Rio de Janeiro in 2010, TAL | Tech Art Lab is less an institution than a living organism—one that grows through dialogue, experimentation, and sustained international exchange. Conceived by artist, curator, and cultural producer Gabriela Maciel, TAL operates at the intersection of art, science, technology, society, and the environment, fostering platforms where artistic practice becomes a mode of research and public engagement rather than a fixed outcome.
Digital Provocateurs, The Wrong New Digital Art Biennale, Cidade das Artes, Rio de Janeiro, 2018. Installation view.
What began as an extension of Gabriela Maciel’s own studio and curatorial practice—situated in the port zone of Rio de Janeiro—gradually evolved into an independent exhibition space, and later into a transdisciplinary ecosystem encompassing exhibitions, residencies, laboratories, festivals, study groups, and digital programmes. Over the years, TAL has hosted artists, researchers, and practitioners from diverse fields and geographies, positioning Rio de Janeiro as both a physical site and an epistemological field for inquiry.
Rather than adhering to disciplinary boundaries, TAL is grounded in a philosophy of interconnected systems. Its projects engage with urgent contemporary questions—climate change, biodiversity loss, technological acceleration, and social transformation—through artistic methodologies that privilege sensibility, critical imagination, and collective thinking.
Residency programs final works in TAL residency studio space, open studio exhibition: Campo Expandido (Expanded Field), AR (Air) and ECO (Eco Echo), April 2025. Installation view with works by José Kós.
TAL | Tech Art Lab: Residencies, Exhibitions, Labs, Workshops and Digital Programmes
Marian Starosta. entreabertxs. TAL Residency, Open Studio, June 2025. Collaboration btween TAL and Instituto Rubens Gerchman, MAM Rio.
At its core, TAL functions as a research platform—one that understands artistic practice as a form of inquiry rather than illustration. Its programmes are designed to cultivate environments where artists, scientists, designers, educators, and researchers can work together, allowing different methodologies and sensibilities to intersect.
International exchange is central to TAL’s ethos. Many of its initiatives are developed through long-term collaborations with cultural, environmental, and academic organizations, creating frameworks that remain attentive to local contexts while engaging global conversations. This balance between situated knowledge and transnational dialogue has become a defining characteristic of the platform.
TAL’s formats are intentionally diverse. Residencies provide time and space for deep research; exhibitions translate process into public encounter; labs and workshops encourage hands-on experimentation; and digital programmes expand access and connectivity beyond geographic limits. Together, these formats form a continuous cycle of research, production, and dissemination.
Works by Fabian Albertini & Juliana Curvellano and José Kós, TAL Residency Campo Expandido, Open Studio, March 2025. Photo: Paula Pedrosa.
The Residency Programme; Rio de Janeiro as an Active Field of Research
The TAL Residency Programme is open to artists, curators, researchers, and practitioners from all fields and operates through both individual and group formats. Among its core initiatives is the SOLO Residency, a tailor-made programme designed to address the specific goals and research needs of a single artist, duo, or small group.
Theo Tajes, open studio, TAL residency studio space, June 2025. Collaboration between TAL and Instituto Rubens Gerchman, MAM Rio.
Residencies typically combine field research, production, mentoring sessions, presentations, and public moments, with flexible timeframes that may include in-person and online components. Rather than isolating residents in a studio environment, TAL emphasizes sustained exchange—with local institutions, researchers, and communities—creating opportunities for long-term collaboration and future projects.
A defining aspect of the residency is its relationship to place. Rio de Janeiro’s landscapes, urban ecologies, and social textures are not treated as a backdrop but as integral elements of the research process. In this context, artistic practice becomes a way of engaging with the city’s layered histories and contemporary urgencies.
Operating at the convergence of art, ecology, and technology, TAL’s residencies cultivate a politics of attention—a slowing down of perception that allows new forms of knowledge, care, and imagination to emerge.
About Gabriela Maciel
Gabriela Maciel (b. 1977, Rio de Janeiro) is an artist, curator, and producer whose work consistently navigates between artistic creation, research, and institutional collaboration. Educated at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, with formal training in Brazil at EBA–UFRJ, she has developed projects across Brazil, Europe, and Asia, exhibiting and curating in museums, galleries, and cultural institutions worldwide. Please take a look at the Q & A with Gabriela Maciel.
Her practice is marked by a sustained interest in art as a bridge between knowledge systems—linking scientific research, ecological thinking, digital cultures, and ancestral forms of knowledge. This approach informs not only her own artistic work but also the conceptual architecture of TAL, which she founded and continues to direct.
In parallel with her curatorial and artistic trajectory, Maciel has collaborated with institutions such as Museu do Amanhã, Casa Museu Eva Klabin, Futuros – Art and Technology Museum, and international platforms including The Wrong – New Digital Art Biennale, where she has served as curator and ambassador for Rio de Janeiro.
Credits: Images courctesy of TAL, artists and additional photographers as credited in the image texts.