Lolo Ostia

Lolo Ostia creates site-specific installations, sculptures, and moving-image works that reimagine our relationship to living materials and the unseen systems that shape us. Seven years ago, she shifted her practice from a photography lab to a biology lab, redirecting her research toward bacteria and material experimentation. This transition—from directing an image to collaborating with living systems—forms the foundation of her investigation into interspecies communication and the tensions between human-made and microbial forms of growth. Her multidisciplinary career is grounded in a deep commitment to community engagement and cross-disciplinary collaboration. She has led workshops on sustainable art practices and ecological design at NYU, Parsons School of Design, the Fashion Institute of Technology, RISD, Genspace, Stony Brook University, and institutions in Beijing. Her work has been exhibited internationally at museums, art fairs, and experimental film screenings across China, Cuba, France, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Russia, and the United States. In parallel to her artistic career, she worked as a Director of Photography and Producer, with work featured in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair Italia, and other international publications. Ostia holds an Associate Degree in Spatial Design from the Fashion Institute of Technology, a BFA from Parsons School of Design, and a Master’s degree from NYU. Her work has been supported by several grants and is the inaugural recipient of the Marco Castro Cosio Media, Art and Technology Fellowship  from the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, a premier incubator that bridges human storytelling with advanced technology jointly run by Columbia’s journalism school and Stanford’s engineering school. She teaches at Parsons School of Design.