Carolina Pfister is a Brazilian immigrant, writer, artist, and organizational leader based in Portland, Oregon. Growing up across languages and geographies continues to animate her work. She came of age in Brazil’s punk movement as artist and organizer and has spent nearly three decades moving between multimedia art and building and leading cultural and community organizations. Her debut work of narrative nonfiction, represented by Transatlantic Agency, goes on submission this fall.
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Carolina é escritora, artista multimídia e fundadora de projetos sociais. Seu trabalho atravessa a não ficção literária, o cinema e outras mídias, com raízes na cena punk brasileira. Atualmente finaliza seu livro de estreia. Vive na Costa Oeste Estados Unidos.
Recent Essays
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“Floating Down, Unafraid” - The Offing
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“Spot it Got it: Vying for Legitimacy in my Americas” - The Acentos Review
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“My Atoms Were There, My Atoms Are Here” - Cagibi Journal
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“On Moving On - Women’s Autobiographical Writing as an Act of Letting Go” - The Artisanal Writer
Selected Work
Artist residencies include Hypatia-in-the-Woods (2020/23) and Caldera (2018/19). Honors and grants include the Women in Film Emerging Latina Filmmaker Award and an Oregon Regional Arts & Culture Council Project Grant.
Projects include the documentary Viva Viva, a portrait of São Paulo punks, and I See You, a layered sound story of a gentrifying block. Her work has screened and aired at Cinemateca Brasileira (São Paulo), the Chicago International Film Festival, In-Edit Brasil, CBGB Festival, the Curitiba International Film Festival, public radio, and others. Carolina has also worked as a segment producer for public television, an art director at MTV Brasil, and an art educator at Walker’s Point Center for the Arts and the Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo.
She co-founded and served as Executive Director of CultureSeed (2018–2025), a youth-serving nonprofit providing long-term outdoor immersion and mental health programs. She just served as the Interim Director for Greater Good Northwest, supporting programs for people experiencing homelessness and housing instability. Her prior nonprofit leadership and communications work includes roles with a focus on food security, youth, and the arts.
