The group exhibition Space for the Body presents a set of works by Portuguese and international artists that focus on the body as a creative and perceptive agent, exploring its relationship with space and time, with movement and absence, and with architecture and intimacy.

The starting point for the exhibition is the distinctive spatial characteristics of the Caves Ferreira wine cellars and the sensory experience created by walking through its spaces, taking advantage of its interior darkness, the rhythm of its repeating shapes and shadows, and the expansion and contraction of its halls and passageways. Inspired by the legacy of the iconic figure of Dona Antónia Adelaide Ferreira, Space for the Body focuses on the work of women artists who have deepened a reflection about space and the body, challenging its limits. While some artists explore the formal, phenomenological, and conceptual outlines of this theme, others delve into its personal, social, and political implications.

Positing the body as a situation, as a mediator of the world and as an aggregator of experiences and memories, opens paths of investigation into questions of identity that run through the works of different artists represented in the show. The exhibition includes sculptural works and sound installations that appeal to the senses and to the viewer's movement through space, as well as works by artists that dissolve the limits between their body and their practice - an approach that gained expression in the 1960s and 1970s. Space for the Body brings together works from this period to the present day, covering the representative time span of the Serralves Collection.

The exhibition is part of the Serralves Collection’s Itinerant Exhibition Programme, which aims to make the Foundation's collection accessible to different audiences across the country.

Curated by Joana Valsassina