Silent Witness 2023

PADA38 Group Exhibition

Barreiro, Portugal, 2023

Silent Witness was developed during my two-month residency at PADA Studios in Barreiro, Portugal, in 2023. Working within the former CUF industrial complex, I became immersed in a landscape of intense light, concrete, vast industrial spaces and the constant hum of machinery. The former industrial complex prompted me to question what had been lost through relentless production — connection to nature, humanity and the self — and to consider the politics of silence and what might exist behind the façades, portals and negative spaces of the built environment. Against this austere setting, nature persisted in weeds growing through cracks, surviving with almost no water. I began to see these fragile forms as acts of resilience and, alongside feathers and discarded materials, used them to search for the feminine within an industrial landscape. Stitching, quilting, layering and repairing became gestures of care and renewal, while soft materials offered a way to cocoon and protect against the intensity of light and concrete. The residency became an exercise in slowing down, paying attention and finding traces of humanity within a landscape shaped by relentless production.