Exhibition Opening: 20th January at 6 pm

Com a casa às costas brings together a group of works by Carla Filipe (Aveiro, Portugal, 1973) from the Serralves Collection and the artist’s Collection, following some of the artist’s main lines of research, closely related to the railway world and to the concept of travel in its broadest sense: as a form of wandering and escaping, of migration and subsistence. The exhibition’s title derives from an idiomatic expression (loosely translated to ‘with one’s home on one’s back’) that refers precisely to the idea of a voluntary or imposed form of nomadism, evoking the notion of the home as a place in motion, composed of the material and immaterial baggage we carry with us. The exhibition presents works from the beginning of the artist’s career and iconic works that have indelibly marked her practice, as well as some previously unseen works and others purposely reconsidered for this exhibition at Forum Arte Braga.

Carla Filipe grew up in an environment of great social and political upheaval, where ‘the street was the stage for all the graphic images and slogans of change’. Settling in Porto in the 2000s, her work is largely developed in motion: travelling the country by train and roaming the city on foot; recording shifting landscapes, random stops and wandering thoughts; collecting fragments and stories; making use of photography and drawing, frottage and stencil, memory and writing; considering the street as a studio and travel as a floating experience between awe and disillusion. Com a casa às costas reflects the nomadic nature of the artist’s practice, bringing together works relating to this theme conceived between 2005 and 2021, both in Portugal and during artistic residencies in London and Antwerp.

This exhibition, curated by Joana Valsassina, is part of the Serralves Collection Touring Exhibition Programme, which aims to make the Foundation’s collection accessible to different audiences across the country.

Production: Fundação de Serralves — Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto