Carla Filipe #2: Partilha de conhecimento, 2024

This limited edition for Editorial Concreta is part of Carla Filipe’s research on railways, a project that examines social, political, and economic phenomena on both local and global scales, incorporating an autobiographical dimension. Inspired by her childhood near the major railway hub of Entroncamento, the artist explores themes of travel and itinerancy. The work is based on her extensive fieldwork and photographic documentation across various geographies of Portugal. Filipe combines techniques such as writing, drawing, cutting, and collage to transform these photographs into a series of ‘drawing-collages’. This piece reflects her multidisciplinary approach, where personal and collective histories are intertwined with broader sociopolitical narratives. Additionally, Carla Filipe is the author of the book Boletim, published by Editorial Concreta and available here, which compiles her research on railways and their role as a social and political archive. This publication expands her artistic exploration by critically analysing transport systems as metaphors for connection and movement. Her artistic practice stands out for its ability to transform elements of experimental archives and railway materials into a vibrant exploration of memory, movement, and social structures. This project further solidifies her position as one of the most significant figures in contemporary Portuguese art.

Carla Filipe is an artist living and working in Porto. Her practice critically explores the relationship between art objects, culture and activism. Anchored in drawing, personal experiences and the concept of autobiography as an experimental archive of contemporaneity, Filipe’s creative process is the result of the appropriation of artefacts and documents that construct a singular form of social portrait and, at the same time, self-portrait. He has had solo exhibitions at Galeria da Escola das Artes, Universidade Católica, Porto; Museu de Serralves, Porto; Galerie Carré, Villa de Arson, Nice; Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon; or Maat, Lisbon, among others. His work has been shown in group exhibitions at institutions such as the Coimbra Biennial; HKW, Berlin; Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon; CA2M, Móstoles; Artium, Vitoria; Galeria Municipal de Oporto; the Istanbul Biennial; or Manifesta. He has held residencies at Acme Studios, London, UK; AIR Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium; the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation; Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna, Austria; and Peacock & Warm, Aberdeen, Scotland.