Lightless, a solo exhibition in the Contemporary Gallery of Serralves Museum, features works produced during a series of residences that took place over more than a year. With the support of the museum and park team, SB transformed a small outhouse on the Serralves Foundation estate into a studio.

“In a spirit of recycle/reuse, making use of a range of materials salvaged from different exhibitions put on by the museum, or otherwise found in nature — such as the clay which served as raw material for a series of sculptures and the iconic Casa de Serralves’ rose-colored ink, used for a number of drawings on cardboard, just to name a few examples, — Sara Bichão turns a critical gaze to how contemporary art is produced, where art is seen as a commodity, and thereby contributing to an interminable cycle of consumption and waste. In her work, she stakes a claim for art as an act of resistance, a means to challenge established norms enabling us to collectively become aware of the importance of sustainability and respect for the environment. Nonetheless, rather than being a political manifesto, the work of Sara Bichão constitutes a form of emotional, empiric expression, an invitation to explore new perspectives and ways of looking at the world and how we relate to nature and the other. This is where the artist’s hand makes itself felt; the delicateness of gesture, molding the sculptures and sewing the fabric; the intuitive freeness of a practice which affirms itself as an absolutely unique voice on the national art scene. In this intermingling of art and substance, the artist reveals the gracefulness of the eternal cycle of life, steadily turning, where each work absorbs the essence of what was, to metamorphosize into what will be, in a constant, uninterrupted flow echoing the intrinsic rhythms of nature.”

Excerpt of the intro text by Inês Grosso, 2024

© Filipe Braga

Full intro text and museum map, below: