Solange Fabião

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – Lives and works in New York

Artist and architect Solange Fabião was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Fabião, since a very early age has been committed to the fine arts, considering painting a lifetime activity. At the age of 8, Fabião produced her first set, a large-scale painting of a tree on a black background. Diversity in the creative process and in the forms of expression has been her focal point; Fabião studied architecture, received her BFA in set design. Fabião worked as set designer for the Brazilian Network Rede Globo and designed sets for theater in Rio de Janeiro and in Berlin, Germany. Fabião studied digital media and art history at the HDK and Freie Universität Berlin, arriving in Berlin seven months before the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In 1994, after experiencing the five initial years of Germany’s Unification, Fabião moved to New York.

Fabião received several honorary mentions for her architectural projects, among them one given by the Finnish Association of Architects in 1999 for the project Xky Xcraper, her first collaboration with Steven Holl Architects (SHA). In 2003, she received a New York AIA Project Award for the Loisium Visitors’ Center in Langenlois Austria, a co-design with SHA. As an industrial designer, Fabião has launched in 2005 in Austria an innovative door handle design Soffici, which combines pliable silicone technology and sculptural qualities, manufactured by Olivari in Italy. In the same year she won the architecture competition for the Cité de L’Ocean et du Surf in Biarritz, France another collaboration with SHA. The complex that was opened to the public in June 2011 received several awards including Cité de l’Ocean et du Surf Public Building of the Year by the 2011 Emirates Glass LEAF Awards, 2011 ANNUAL DESIGN REVIEW – winner, Cité de l’Ocean et du Surf - Biarritz, France and ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards 2011- Cité de l’Ocean et du Surf winner in the category of Museums & Libraries. Most recently (in 2013) the Cité de l’Ocean et du Surf was listed in the “Top 10 Dazzling 21st-Century Museums” by Architizer.

In 2009 Elementar no.1 – Path to Henry Hudson, an outdoor installation, was part of “Ahoy! Where lies Henry Hudson,” an exhibit of Henry Hudson memorials in Woodstock, NY, celebrating the Quadricentennial of Hudson’s explorations. In 2008, Fabião inaugurated her project AMAZÔNIA (Projecting on Black) at Western Bridge, a non-profit space in Seattle – a HD Video series shot in the Amazon region during the dry and wet seasons of 2006 and 2007. The single-direction videos, which presented unedited dramatic changes that occur during sunrise and sunset, were projected on a black-painted surface revealing a new kind of depth to the projected image – while also exploring the extremes of darkness and light.

Fabião’s art projects have been exhibited in Europe, in the Americas and in the Middle East. Including Global Public Art Project TRANSITIO: TRANSITIO_MIAMI in 2006, TRANSITIO_NYC in 2005 (Made possible by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with support from The September 11th Fund; the project was selected to participate in the 2006 Venice Architecture Biennial to represent NYC at Cities, Architecture and Society Exhibition); 2004 TRANSITIO_BEIRUT, 2003 exhibition TRANSITIO NYC_TORNIO in the Aine Art Museum in Finland, 2002 at Art and Idea – Mexico City, and 2001 Duration: 1 hour and 3 minutes – Location: 17.3 miles at the Paul Rogers Gallery in NYC, coinciding with the Guggenheim Museum exhibit, Brazil: Body and Soul. In 1997, she participated in the 47th Venice Biennial presenting the Internet project CYBERCLONE 2000. In 2012 Fabião gave her first lecture comprising 25 years of work (1987 -2012) entitled THE ESSENCE AND THE IN-BETWEEN – Art and Architecture at the Center for Architecture in New York.