ABOUT
Rosa Mar Tato Ortega works across public art, site-responsive practice, curatorial projects and collaborative cultural outcomes. Her projects move between independent artistic practice, community engagement, exhibitions and long-term public commissions developed across Victoria, Australia.
At the centre of her work is deep listening. Projects unfold through dialogue, observation, site research and sustained engagement with people, place and environment. Narrative, ecology, memory and lived experience often shape the final outcome.
Whether developed for public or private contexts, Rosa’s works respond to spatial experience, architecture, landscape and community histories. Her practice embraces process, allowing ideas to evolve through collaboration, material exploration and immersion within each site.
Alongside her own projects, Rosa works with artists and small businesses navigating exhibitions, deadlines and major project outcomes, offering consulting, media support, project development and visibility guidance.
Her work also extends to bespoke commissions, sculptural elements, workshops and ecology-led cultural programming through Currents of Practice, aligned with World Wetlands Day and evolving international themes connected to wetlands and waterways.
'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
ASSESSMENTS OF ROSA'S ARTISTIC PRACTICE
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
