Familiar Outsider explores the possibility of depicting the masculine universe inside Porto (Portugal), a city still reflecting strong sexist and conservative values.
Written walls and male characters, whether they be workers, drunkards, ex-convicts, rappers, or retired, are frequent inhabiters of its urban sceneries, mainly found in the outskirts of a bar or public squares. Women, almost always, are in transit.
Creating these images became a way to underline my experience as a foreigner (both literally and conceptually), allowing me to dwell on the poetic gestures of a day-to-day sustained by the rawness of banality and subtle contradiction. The initial curiosity and desire to infiltrate these "forbidden" spaces gave way to a challenging practice of trying to stay open and generous, far from clichéd or pre-conceptualized ideas.
In the process of becoming familiar with them, I found freedom, beauty, and vulnerability, but also loneliness and some undeniable hardness, hinting at aspects of frailty and ambiguity. This propelled me to shape the work through contrast, using my sensitive and feminine point of view to build a tense, but congruous narrative that questions this segregated space while also respecting its integrity.