Miguel Leal. Visual Artist. Associate Professor in the Visual Arts Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto (FBAUP), where he has taught since 2001. Founding Member and former Director of i2ADS (Institute for Research in Art, Design and Society). PhD in Painting in 2010 from FBAUP, Postgraduate Diploma (2003) in Communication and Language from FCSH (UNL), Master's Degree in History of Art in Portugal in 1999 from FLUP, Degree (1991) and Bachelor's Degree (1989) in Plastic Arts - Painting from the School of Fine Arts of Porto . /////// He exhibits and publishes regularly in Portugal and abroad. His artistic work is part of several public and private collections. His main areas of interest, work and activity are the Visual Arts, Media Art, Cinema, geopolitics, as well the relationship between Art and technology, or, in general, the issues of so-called contextual art, and his practice is defined by the intersections and mixtures between art, academy and research./////// Besides FBAUP, over the years he has taught permanently or temporarily at various schools: Escola Sup. Artística do Porto, Escola das Artes da UCP, Universidade Lusófona, HGB Leipzig, Univ. de Cuenca, SABK Karlsruhe or the HBK Dresden. ////// In addition to a number of previous ones he has recently been involved in 2 projects: YUCUNET- Establishment of a Yucatan-Cuba Network of MA Programmes in Contemporary Art and Cultural Management, in this case as regional coordinator; and in the multidisciplinary project SHS- Soil health surrounding former mining areas: characterisation, risk analysis, and intervention. Both projects define well areas his main areas of activity, specifically topics related to geopolitics, extractivism, the anthropocene and decolonial studies, always at the crossroads of artistic practice and research. ////// His artistic career started in the late 1980s, with greater visibility since 1992. His work uses different media and spans various territories, making it difficult to clearly separate his production into rigid categories or defined time frames. Since 1996, this activity has had an important presence on the internet, not only through the pioneering independent server Virose.pt , of which he is a founding member and which I still manage today, but also in multiple other instances where art, technology and the media intersect, often with special attention to their social and political dimension. At the same time, both his academic training, teaching career and intervention in the schools and universities cannot be separated from other areas of action. ////// These and further research topics have resulted in a wide range of outputs, including publications, exhibitions and workshops. Some of the most recent ones include the books: Miguel Leal; Federico L. Silvestre, Haydée Garcia (Eds), Teorías del Arte y la imagen contemporánea: Otras epistemologías de la visualidad(Abada, 2024 [in press]). Miguel Leal, Pedras Figuras(i2ADS, 2022). Miguel Leal [Ed.], Uccellacci e uccellini: East of the City(I2ADS, 2023) ///// Each one of these books result directly from the crossing of research and artistic practice, trying to bring new perspectives on art practice as a producer of knowledge. For instance, the book Uccellacci e uccellini results directly of some years of seminars and wanderings around the city, trying to question the politics of urbanism and social exclusion. //// All these and other extension activities have been an important contribution to the dissemination of research, liaison with the community and porosity between the university and the outside world. Such work has had of course repercussions in the supervision of graduate and undergraduate students, who are directly or indirectly involved in this journey, through various collaborations, seminars, workshops, masterclasses, exhibitions or research projects.