SOLO EXHIBITION AN EXPLORATION OF TRASH

An Exploration of Trash examines the paradox of contemporary consumer society: a system driven by constant acquisition, where objects are rapidly replaced and excess becomes inevitable. The exhibition questions: what happens to what is left behind? To what is discarded, forgotten, or deemed no longer useful?

Rather than treating waste as an endpoint, the artist approaches it as a site of possibility. Materials displaced by newer purchases — cardboard, paper, glass, acrylic, and found objects — are reactivated through painting, installation, and sound, forming a body of work that reflects on the urgency of rethinking our relationship with consumption.

Through fragments, unstable forms, and colour harmonies, the artist addresses a society increasingly focused on the immediacy of the present, often neglecting the long-term consequences of its choices. Waste becomes a mirror of this condition: a residue of excess, but also a record of collective behaviour.

By reclaiming the disposable, the exhibition crosses symbolic territories that define our time — social, political, economic, cultural, religious, and sexual. "Trash" is no longer understood as failure or loss, but as raw material for transformation, capable of generating new narratives and alternative futures.

In this context, waste reveals itself as part of our shared memory and identity. It is not simply what we throw away, but what remains of us — material evidence of the past shaping the present and opening pathways to the future.

This is the artist largest solo exhibition to date, offering a critical and poetic vision of how waste may, paradoxically, point toward solutions for many of today’s environmental and societal challenges.

“Since I began exploring sustainability in my work, I have been fascinated by the ideas of imperfection and intention. It is the fear of judgment and the potential of imperfection that challenge me to continue playing with materials and images.” — Isa Magalhães