the world flag
A piece situated between sculpture and assemblage, combining textile fragments and reclaimed wood to form a politically charged, mixed‑media object.
THE WORLD FLAG unfolds as a quiet yet insistent reflection on how we imagine — and negotiate — the idea of a world united.
Rather than adopting the familiar geometry of national emblems, the work dismantles the notion of a single, stable identity. It is composed of fragments: torn pieces of a white flag, marked with the symbol “$”, assembled over reclaimed wood sourced from a factory dependent on global imports.
The materials themselves speak of circulation, value, and the invisible routes that shape contemporary life. The white fabric, traditionally associated with neutrality or surrender, becomes a surface charged with ambiguity. The repeated “$” symbol does not point to a specific ideology; instead, it acts as a shorthand for the forces — economic, cultural, emotional — that bind and divide the world in uneven ways.
Assembled on repurposed wood, the work carries the memory of industrial labor and global supply chains. What once served as packaging for goods traveling across continents now becomes the backbone of an artwork questioning the very systems that moved it.
THE WORLD FLAG is not a proposal for a new emblem, nor a critique delivered through slogans.
It is a constellation of signs, a fractured banner that invites viewers to consider how value is constructed, how power circulates, and how the idea of “the world” is continuously rewritten.
In its fragmentation, it suggests that unity — if it exists — is always provisional, always negotiated, always in flux.
This work was presented in the solo exhibition AN EXPLORATION OF TRASH at the Municipal Museum of Espinho, where its material and conceptual layers gained expanded resonance. Within this context, the work stood as a quiet counter‑monument, questioning the systems of value, circulation and global dependency embedded in everyday objects.
THE WORLD FLAG was also included in the larger installation WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS, a constellation of works that explored the hidden infrastructures, nocturnal rhythms and overlooked material flows that shape contemporary urban life. Within this broader ensemble, this piece functioned as a symbolic anchor — a fractured emblem that echoed the installation’s investigation into what cities discard, absorb, transform or conceal when no one is watching.
Mounted on reclaimed wood originally used in industrial packaging imported from China, the work aligned seamlessly with the exhibition’s focus on material afterlives and the politics of waste. The torn white flag fragments, marked with repeated “$” symbols, invited viewers to reflect on how global forces imprint themselves onto local realities, and how notions of unity, identity and value are continuously renegotiated.
piece
PIECE plays with the fragile distance between “a piece” and “peace,” transforming the word itself into a sculptural proposition. The work presents a life‑size figure of a woman waving a flag from which white pigment slowly drips, as if the idea of peace were dissolving, reforming, or perpetually unfinished.
Entirely made from papier‑mâché constructed from newspaper cuttings, the sculpture carries the weight of collective narratives — headlines, crises, hopes, and contradictions — compacted into a single body. The material choice is deliberate: newspapers are records of conflict and resolution, of promises made and broken, of the world’s attempts to define what peace should look like. Here, they are reshaped into a human form striving to hold a symbol that refuses to stay still.
The dripping white flag becomes a paradox. Traditionally a sign of surrender or truce, it appears unstable, melting, almost liquid. It suggests that peace is not a fixed state but a process — fragile, negotiated, and constantly at risk of slipping away. The gesture of waving the flag evokes both protest and plea, echoing the emotional charge of public demonstrations.
The sculpture draws inspiration from iconic depictions of revolution, particularly the imagery of women leading uprisings in 19th‑century painting. Yet PIECE shifts the narrative: instead of carrying a national banner, the figure holds a flag emptied of symbols, stripped of identity, reduced to a white surface that refuses to offer easy answers.
In its material vulnerability and conceptual tension, PIECE stands as a meditation on the complexity of peace — not as an idealized state, but as something built, carried, and continually remade by human hands.
while the city sleeps
This installation unfolds in a quiet, suspended atmosphere — a moment between movement and stillness, between human absence and the subtle persistence of the natural world. The work consists of a group of bicycles covered with white cloths, each cloth painted with black symbols associated with the four classical elements: earth, air, fire and water. Draped over the bicycles like soft shrouds, the cloths suggest that the bicycles — and their owners — have fallen asleep.
The installation operates as a metaphor for the rhythms of the city. When people rest, when engines stop, when the urban pulse slows down, pollution decreases and the environment begins to regenerate. The bicycles, temporarily immobilized, become stand‑ins for the human body itself: resting, breathing, withdrawing from constant activity. The white cloths evoke both protection and vulnerability, as if the city’s everyday objects were tucked in for the night.
The elemental symbols painted on the cloths introduce a deeper layer of meaning. They hint at the forces that continue to move even when the city is still — wind, water, fire, soil — the fundamental systems that sustain life and outlast human schedules. By covering the bicycles, these symbols reclaim the urban space for nature, reminding us that the planet continues its cycles regardless of our presence.
WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS invites viewers to imagine a world where rest becomes an ecological act, where slowing down is not a loss of productivity but a gesture of care. In this temporary pause, the installation suggests, the city breathes again — and the Earth, momentarily unburdened, begins to heal.
highway sign
HIGHWAY SIGN emerges from the same logic of material reuse that underpins much of the artist’s practice. The work is painted on leftover wooden panels — fragments of industrial packaging that once travelled inside a shipping container from China. These discarded surfaces, marked by global circulation, become the ground for a new visual language.
The painting draws from symbols found along highways: arrows, warnings, directional marks and coded signs that most drivers register only subconsciously. In the work, these symbols appear almost hidden, layered, repeated, inverted or partially erased, as if waiting to be discovered. They form a kind of urban script — a quiet communication system embedded in the city’s infrastructure.
The artist is fascinated by these found elements. She wonders who painted them, how they were made, and imagines the anonymous workers who apply them at night, when the city sleeps and the roads fall silent. This nocturnal authorship adds a layer of mystery: a parallel world of signs created in the dark, guiding millions of people who never stop to question their origin.
By isolating and reinterpreting these symbols on reclaimed wood, HIGHWAY SIGN transforms everyday visual noise into a contemplative object. It becomes a dialogue between the formal clarity of road language and the raw materiality of discarded industrial matter — a reminder that even the most functional marks of the city carry stories, gestures and human traces.