Monica Pormale was born in 1974 in Jekabpils, Latvia. In 1993 she graduated from the Textile Department of the Riga College of Applied Arts, and in 2000 she graduated from the Scenography Department of the Latvia Academy of Arts. The same year she began collaborating with director Alvis Hermanis. She created sets for his productions of “Long Life,” “Further!” (based on the work of Maxim Gorky), “Latvian Stories” (together with Kristine Jurjane), “Ice,” “The Sound of Silence” (at the New Riga Theatre), “Fathers” and “The Idiot” (at the Zurich Drama Theatre) and “Cologne Stories” (at the Cologne Drama Theatre). She has worked with numerous other directors, including Girts Ecis (Vladimir Sorokin's “Dostoevsky-Trip” at the New Riga Theatre; Galina Polishchuk (“Blow, Wind, Blow!” at the Latvian National Theatre, and “The Glass Menagerie” at the New Riga Theatre); and Andrejs Zagars (“Carmen” at the Latvian National Opera). In addition to her work as a theatre designer, Pormale is an accomplished photographer and she has created and exhibited numerous installations. Exhibits and artistic projects involving her work have been held in Latvia and other European countries, including “Everything Will Be All Right,” commissioned by the Berlin Festival; “After the Wall” (Budapest, Berlin, Stockholm); “Baltic Time” (Zagreb and Innsbruck); “Fundamentalists of the New Order” (Copenhagen); and others. She works in the sphere of cinema and television. She has twice been the recipient of the Latvian Union of Artists Prize for best art project of the year (2000, 2002).