ABOUT
MEET ROSA
Rosa Mar Tato Ortega is a Spanish-Australian visual artist and creative collaborator based on the Mornington Peninsula. With a postgraduate degree in Fine Art from RMIT and a multilingual perspective, her practice moves fluidly between independent work, curatorial frameworks, and deeply collaborative projects that challenge the constraints of traditional object-based art.
She is the founder and curator of Currents of Practice, an evolving platform of exhibitions and conversations aligned with the Ramsar Convention’s World Wetlands Day. The project brings together artists, communities, and environmental contexts, positioning creative practice as a form of listening, reflection, and exchange within fragile ecological systems.
At the heart of Rosa’s work lies a sustained commitment to deep listening. Her projects unfold through dialogue, community engagement, and immersive research, weaving together narratives of place, memory, culture, and environment. Across both her artistic and curatorial work, she is driven by the creation of encounters that invite attention, connection, and new ways of seeing.
Photo Credit: Bri Horne
Rosa’s referees attest to her capacity to work both independently and in collaboration, facilitating outcomes that are dynamic in scope and impact. Colleagues and collaborators consistently note that her projects encourage audiences to look beyond the boundaries of traditional, object-based art.
At the heart of her practice is a discipline of deep listening - a mode of engagement that transcends convention. Her works emerge through conversations, sustained community engagement, and immersive research, where narrative, history, culture, environment, and lived experience converge to shape the final form.
Whether realised in public or private contexts, Rosa’s projects are rooted in site and immersion. She recognises that meaningful art often requires a degree of curatorial risk - embracing processes of allowing, unfolding, and responding to the evolving nature of each commission.
Beyond her own creative output, Rosa frequently acts as a conduit between artist and institution, facilitating logistics, media strategies, and structural frameworks that support artists and their work.
Her practice extends to bespoke commissions and tailored art workshops. Enquiries are welcomed for the development of new projects.
ASSESSMENTS OF ROSA'S ARTISTIC PRACTICE
'There is a strong environmental focus in Rosa’s process, intertwined with community storytelling. The layering of imagery in her final artwork reflects the layering of cultural heritage and backgrounds of Flemington with an underlying response to waterways and landscape. Her final artwork for the Flemington Community Hub respectfully and thoughtfully represents people and location and broader themes of environmental conservation, migration and local history. Her artistic processes and outcomes deliver benefits to individuals, the wider public and community.'
Our brief called for an artist to engage with key stakeholders to create an artwork for a series of perforated metal panels. The scale of the panels are approximately 7 metres x 7 metres, with eight panels in total across the west façade of the new building. Construction is underway.'
Gemma Portelli
Project Support Officer
Moonee Valley City Council
On 9 September 2023, Moonee Valley City Council unveiled the Djerring Flemington Hub, its first purpose-built community hub, featuring Buwi Birrip Djerring - the largest public artwork to date by Mornington Peninsula artist Rosa Mar Tato Ortega. Spanning 7 x 7 metres across eight façade panels, the work emerged from the challenges of the pandemic, integrating environmental themes with the cultural narratives of Flemington.
Developed through consultation with Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Elders, local environmental groups, and community members - and in collaboration with two mentored young artists - the piece reflects Rosa’s commitment to environmental stewardship, migration stories, and local heritage. Designed by Croxon Ramsay architects, the Hub stands on Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Country, with its name Djerring (“together”) selected by public vote.
Buwi Birrip Djerring - a 7-metre-wide public artwork weaving together Flemington’s cultural narratives, environmental heritage, and the spirit of coming together.
'While personal experience is at the centre of her art practice, it is often through outward connections to community or site that her work unfolds. She consistently explores the tensions between material form and ephemeral light/shadow interplay and her work seamlessly crosses between the platforms of public art and personal professional practice.
Subtle collaborations, impressions and triggers, chance meetings, synchronous moments, and often intimate conversations are crucial to understanding her work.'
Dr Sally Northfield
Education Program Coordinator United Nations Association Australia (Victoria)
Co-Manager Women’s Mural Documentation Project
WYNDHAM CITY'S SALTWATER
COMMUNITY CENTRE
'Her CV will demonstrate created works which provide specific environments where she focuses on research, the production and the exhibition of cultural projects, especially those ones related to history, culture, community and their environment. She has been invited to present & exhibit works to celebrate the Women’s Art Register (WAR) 40 Year Celebration. This was quite the installation at the City Library. Rosa has been committed to meeting with manufacturers of materials in Australia so to develop a portfolio of eco-friendly materials that can be integrated into future commissions and site-specific art projects. A highly committed and resourceful artist in her art production as well as meeting timelines and architectural, structural and building guidelines. Whilst she demonstrates with ongoing independent exhibition program, she gives any new project the same dedication." (See images ‘El Pañuelo’ & Wyndham Public Art Commission.)'
David Fitzsimmons
Creative Urban Places Program Lead I Arts Melbourne
City of Melbourne
BIRDS & WATERWAYS
Rosa Mar Tato Ortega completed a twelve month Artist in Residence at Parks Victoria’s Coolart Wetlands on the Mornington Peninsula. During the residency she developed and exhibited works within the Coolart Homestead, the Minsmere Birdhide, and the Crake Birdhide across multiple exhibition periods in 2018.
The residency culminated in a public program that invited visitors to encounter artworks throughout the Homestead and surrounding wetlands landscape, encouraging slow observation and site-responsive engagement. It was within this environment that the Maggie and Bird series emerged, with selected editions remaining available.
This residency laid the conceptual and relational foundation for Currents of Practice, establishing an approach that connects artists, community, and environment through forms of listening, exchange, and artivism within the Mornington Peninsula Shire’s unique ecological contexts.
This period also marked an important material exploration within Rosa’s practice, resulting in a series of wall-based works incorporating textiles and tactile surfaces including carpet, velvet, and silk. The works reflected an ongoing interest in perception, habitat, and the subtle relationships between bodies, movement, and environment.
“Through a process of consultation, immersion, and the gathering of local stories, Rosa Mar Tato Ortega produces an artistic interpretation of the site. Her artistic approach is organic and unique, professional whilst responsive to organisational frameworks. She invites viewers to experience the work from different perspectives. It can be enlightening.”
Julie Ebbott President
Friends of Coolart
