BIOGRAPHY

Monica C. LoCascio (b. 1984) is a transdisciplinary artist focusing on the materiality of invisible phenomena. Her works arrive as artifacts of her material and theoretical research on memory, microbiology, theoretical physics, and hierarchies of knowledge and power. She pairs fermented bio-materials, salvaged fiber, and heritage craft techniques with industrial and salvaged materials to examine the tension between the fluidity and vulnerability of the lived human experience and the systems and institutions that contrast it. She began her art-making practice at the age of 5 when she was taught to crochet and embroider by her grandfather's twin sister.

LoCascio brings a diverse international perspective to her work. She completed her undergraduate studies in New Media & Visual Arts at Emerson College, Boston, with honors and earned a Master’s degree in Art & Science from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria, also with honors. Involved in the intersection of art and science, Since then she has exhibited and lectured internationally.

LoCascio serves on the board of the Medicine & Media Arts Initiative at UCLA and is a member of SEADS. Her art has been featured at significant venues such as the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, the Science Gallery in London, the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, the AIL (Angewandte Innovation Lab) in Vienna, and the ERES Stiftung in Munich. She currently resides and creates in Vienna, Austria.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My practice considers the materiality of invisible phenomena that are integral to bodies’ understanding of and ability to encourage community and create new realities for ourselves, our communities, and the planet. The resulting artworks are speculative fictions and totemic offerings. They open cracks in hard, man-made boundaries, spaces where we might remember our symbiotic origins, feel our entangled potentials, and imagine into reality better futures. 

In particular I use found and salvaged fiber, usually from the collections of deceased individuals, to hand-crochet soft sculptures ranging in size from table-top to room-filling, and embroider onto textiles made from self-grown biofilms made through a fermentation process. Through the algorithmic iterations of my stitching, I excavate and illuminate the compounding and exponential forms that exist within subjects like epigenetics, evolution, and theoretical quantum physics’ handling of non-linear time or superposition theory. My work further ties into examining hierarchies of knowledge and power through the use of craft and fermentation (which is essentially a collaboration with microorganisms) in a fine-art context. I speak to topics such as reproductive labor and matriarchal studies, the importance of embodied (rather than institutional) knowledge, and the essentialism of collaborating with and honoring our non-human symbionts.

I founded bio:craft in 2021, a group composed of four artistic-researchers (myself, daniela brill estrada, Rychèl Thérin, and Mariella Greil), to research the healing communal power of embodied knowledge and craft practices. Together we explore the human and non-human body as a source of power, sovereignty, and agency within and against systems that aren't designed for coexistence and care. 

PRESS

Why The New York Fashion Week Summit’s Debut Matters More than Any Runway, Loopmag.com Feb. 2026
X Frames Per Space, PARNASS Magazin, Dec. 2025
Monica C. LoCascio, MUNTHE Art Monday, Nov. 2025
I Am Harnessing the Chaos, SKUG, Nov. 2025
Quantum Untangled, Qbits and qart… The Naked Scientists, Oct. 2025
Der Pilz als Künstler: Wenn Myzel und Schwammerl zum Werkstoff für Kunstobjekte werden, Die Presse, 2025
Science Gallery London announces Quantum Untangled, London Post, June 2025
Cosmic Titans: Art, Science and the Quantum Universe at Lakeside Arts Leftlion, Feb 2025
Quantum Untangled: Unravelling the Physical Mysteries of the Universe through Art ROAR, Nov. 2025
SCOBY harvest art installation set to showcase Stroud’s textile heritage Gloucestershire Live, Sept. 2024
The Window and The Couch, Les Nouvoeaux Riches, June 2024
Gallery Weekend Berlin, Weltkunst.de, Apr. 2024
It’s a World Machine. Kepler, Kunst & Kosmische Körper, Art-in, Mar. 2023
House of Challenging Orders, Vienna Art Week eflux Agenda, Oct. 2022
It’s a World Machine, KUNSTFORUM International, Mar. 2022
Kosmische Kartoffeln, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Mar. 2022
WELTMASCHINE – im OK Linz, Museums Fernsehen, Mar. 2022
Weltmaschine / Schlossmuseum Linz, Creative Austria, Aug. 2021
Junge Künstler: Was soll denn das? Die Presse, Nov. 2018