ROGÉRIO NUNO COSTA
(b. 1978)
Live artist, performance maker, theatre thinker, epistolary writer, post-academic researcher, meta-educator, curator and editor of experimental experiences, faux-chef. Kind'ish reminder: my pretentiousness is intentional.
I'm a post-disciplinary artist, director, performer, writer, researcher, educator and curator based in Finland and Portugal. My work revolves around the tensions between Art and Communication, Literature and Journalism, Performance and Documentation. My main artistic interests lie on the by-products of art making rather than Art as such, suggesting performative and ephemeral actions that are made available through archival and other documental operations. My performances, lectures, installations and publications explore the fields of theatre, dance, visual arts and literature, taking place (and time) in both public and private contexts, interconnecting popular and erudite culture, autobiographical discourses, science (and pseudo-science) fiction, and post-communicational strategies (guerrilla advertising, conceptual propaganda, piracy).
Holding a BA in Communication Sciences, I have expanded my studies within the fields of Contemporary Art History and Contemporary Culture & New Technologies at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal) and Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art at Aalto University’s School of Arts, Design and Architecture (Finland). I'm a member of the Performance Studies Research Group at CEHUM (University of Minho, Portugal) and Spaces of Artist Education (Society for Artistic Research). Active collaborator of Portuguese theatre companies Estrutura and Teatro Praga, and contemporary dance company Ballet Contemporâneodo Norte, where I often take the roles of artistic consultant, dramaturgist, co-director and performer. I have been curating educational and performing art programs for Armazém 22 (Portugal), SLURPS (Finland), as well as the annual dance program €UROTRA$H and the book “Sistema Infinitamente Imaterial” for Ballet Contemporâneo do Norte.
I often write for art publications and participate in lectures and talks, mainly about the politics of intimacy and autobiographical narratives in performance art. Various publications and other editorial projects include the catalogues “Documentation Project” and “Big Curator Is Watching YOU!”, both about my own artistic and research practices. My work has also been featured in various publications, such as: UMBIGO, Coreia, Coleção Olhares, Artinsite, Flanzine, Cadernos da Dança, Intermagazine, Retina, A Sala, Gerador and Sinais de Cena; as well as the catalogues Garbage Pin Project (Ana Cardim) and Cuidados Intensivos (Joclécio Azevedo). Recently, I have contributed with the essay "Le Cirque Catastrophique: counter-, anti-, para-monumentality in the work of Phia Ménard" for the project “Histories of Dance” (Teatro Municipal do Porto . Rivoli . Campo Alegre).
I have been teaching, lecturing and directing workshops, seminars and masterclasses in academic institutions such as: Escola Superior de Artes e Design (Caldas da Rainha), Faculdade de Belas-Artes (Lisbon), Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (Lisbon), ArtEZ University of the Arts (Arnhem), Universidade de Coimbra, Unversité Paris Nanterre, Faculdade de Belas-Artes (Porto) and Scuola di Teatro Luca Ronconi (Milan), as well as independent art schools and educational programmes: centro em movimento (Lisbon) and RECURSO (Porto). I was a guest teacher within the BA in Theatre at Universidade do Minho (Guimarães, Portugal) from 2014 to 2020.
Apart from my own performance work, I have been writing and directing theatre and dance performances for other artists and companies, also playing the roles of dramaturgist, artistic consultant and editor. I have worked as performer, actor and dancer in various theatre, dance, film and performance art projects directed by Lúcia Sigalho/Companhia de Teatro Sensurround, Teatro Praga, Rosa Coutinho Cabral, Teresa Prima, Mariana Tengner Barros, Susana Mendes Silva, João Cabral, Cão Solteiro, Alain Béhar, Nelson Guerreiro, Miguel Bonneville, Marina Nabais, Hugo Amaro, Casa Conveniente, Estrutura, Daniel Pinheiro, Patrícia Portela, Sónia Baptista, Sofia Neuparth, Joana Barrios, Mafalda Banquart, among others.
Under the alias Chef Rø, I have been developing a series of projects where Gastronomy, Art, Science, Anthropology and Philosophy merge: underground dining, audio/visual cooking shows, video-installations, “conceptual” food writing and food performances, collaborating with fashion and culinary blogs and magazines, chefs/restauranteurs and numerous performing and visual artists interested in the poetics of cooking/eating. A textual/visual compilation of those projects have been documented and published in the book “Food and other practices in the Arthouse”, edited by Ali Akbar Mehta and Vidha Saumya (Finland).
Current projects include the conclusion of an 8-year series of meta-pedagogical activities titled “The Academy As Performance", comprising lectures, experimental laboratories and publications (2015-2025); the performance-installation “Missed-en-Abîme” (2021), work selected for PT.23 - Portuguese Performing Arts Platform; the artist book "Psychobiograhy of a Heroic Loser" (2022); the reenactment of the performance art trilogy “Vou A Tua Casa” (2003-2006)) retitled "Condominium" (2023-2026); and the theatre performance "Itinerary: geology of a homecoming" (2025), co-produced by Teatro Nacional D. Maria II within the EU-funded project STAGES - Sustainable Theatre Alliance for a Green Environmental Shift. Currently preparing a new collaborative curating project titled "Transmission" (2026-2028) and the publication of a 3-part book commissioned by Teatro Praga/Sistema Solar.
I am an Associated Artist of O Espaço do Tempo (Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal) since 2023.
Over the years, my projects have been funded or received working grants from the following institutions: Direção-Geral das Artes (Government of Portugal - Cultura), Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (EGEAC), Advancing Performing Arts Project, Gulbenkian Foundation, Instituto Camões, Atelier Real, Aalto University (Arts Grants), Reclamar Tempo (Teatro Municipal do Porto), Garantir Cultura, TelepART (Instituto Iberoamericano de Finlandia), Finnish Cultural Foundation, among others.

