The U.S. Embassy in Lisbon brought internationally renowned artist, Mia Pearlman to Portugal for the past 12 days to participate in the Lumina Light Festival in Cascais and to address local audiences. While here Ms. Pearlman spoke about her work and the idea that success is a product of pursuing a dream even in the face of set-backs.
Supporting Lumina is important to the Embassy because, as U.S. Ambassador Robert Sherman said when speaking at the opening of the festival, “Lumina is another bright, shiny lucid initiative fusing science and creativity and the growth of this fusion is good for Portugal.”
During her visit, Pearlman met with the public at the Carpe Diem gallery in Lisbon. She also participated in round table event with artists hosted by the American Corner at the Science and Technology faculty at the Nova University and VICARTE (Glass and Ceramics for the Arts Investigation Unit).
While visiting with the artists at VICARTE Ms. Pearlman noted: “In science you can spend years pursuing a hypothesis and it ends with you proving it false. Art is similar. We like to hear about success but most of us will fail far more than we succeed. But we only achieve success when we fail and fail and continue to pick ourselves up and keep going. There is a kind of stubbornness you have to have to succeed…you have to be a little defiant.” -Mia Pearlman speaking at NOVA University.
Mia Pearlman is known worldwide and has had her work exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum’ Renwick Gallery in Washington, DC, the Museum of Arts and Design (New York), Plaatsmaken (Holand), Centre for Recent Drawing (London) and many others. Her work has also been included in various contemporary art books, and in international press, in countries such as the UK, Poland, and Singapore, besides the U.S.
For more information on the artist: http://miapearlman.com/statement.htm
