The Artist, the Engineer, and the Intangible That Connects Them

At fifteen, someone left home—not in crisis, but in clarity. They couldn't breathe in the bubble they were born into and needed to know the people their privilege had kept them from. That hunger never stopped. Thirty-six years later, they're still crossing boundaries: into favelas with a camera, into the lives of women whose stories the world had already written off, into the spaces where art becomes an act of resistance. Fernando Braune is a patent lawyer who has spent decades advising companies across Brazil, but his real fluency runs deeper. He speaks the language of IP law with precision and the language of art with vulnerability—eight published books, continental exhibitions, and a current project that photographs and collects the testimonies of fifteen Black Brazilian women, launching across West Africa and Europe. In this episode of Intangify, listeners discover how someone can hold two seemingly opposing worlds at once, and why the margins often contain more truth than the center. Matthew D. Asbell met Fernando twenty years ago through a cold email written in broken Portuguese. What began as a professional connection became a friendship that braided two families together across continents, teaching both men that vulnerability—the willingness to be wrong, to leave safety, to step into the unfamiliar—is not weakness. It is the only path to becoming whole. About the Guest: Fernando Braune is a patent attorney, published author, photographer, and cultural advocate based in Brazil. His work spans intellectual property law, visual art, and community engagement, with exhibitions and publications across South America, Europe, and Africa. His current project centers the narratives and lived experiences of Black Brazilian women.