As part of the 15th anniversary of the “Art Arrived at Colombo” initiative, Centro Colombo presents, from June 27 to August 31, 2025, the exhibition “Immersion. The Landscapes of Vanessa Barragão”. This exhibition brings together new and existing works by the Portuguese textile artist, whose work combines sustainability, technology and visual poetry.
Rooted in artisanal tradition and guided by a deep ecological awareness, Vanessa Barragão transforms textile industry waste into underwater textile landscapes, using techniques such as crochet, felting, and weaving. Her work bridges the revival of manual craftsmanship with environmental urgency, offering a vision of the natural world that is both critical and poetic. Each piece is, in a sense, a symbolic act of repair—of the planet, of human practices, and of our relationship with nature.
The exhibition invites visitors to dive into Vanessa Barragão’s creative universe through three thematic rooms—a journey that is both sensory and reflective.
The White Cube space is where the artisanal gesture takes center stage. Here, materials, textures, details, and colours that have shaped the artist’s work are revealed, highlighting the manual, meditative, and deeply intuitive dimensions of her creative process—often associated with the feminine universe.
The Immersive Room offers a deep dive into Vanessa’s aesthetic. Large-scale tapestries evoke corals and underwater landscapes, creating an enveloping space of sensory beauty. Moving images, light, and sound amplify the experience, emphasizing the fragility of ecosystems and the urgent need for their preservation.
The studio space opens the doors to the artist’s creative world, revealing the slow, meticulous, and intergenerational work behind each new landscape, blending real references with imaginary places. Drawings, studies, materials, and works in progress showcase Vanessa Barragão’s commitment to reuse and to valuing manual processes as both artistic and political practice. Here, the thread is the beginning of everything.
Beneath Colombo’s glass dome, the artist also presents a site-specific installation inspired by her work “Diving into Dreams,” evoking the fluidity of the ocean and the transitional state between dreaming and waking.
Vanessa Barragão Biography
Vanessa Barragão is a Portuguese textile artist whose work reflects a deep commitment to sustainability, nature and environmental preservation. Born in Albufeira, a coastal city in southern Portugal where she currently maintains her studio, her creations are strongly influenced by the presence of the ocean and are inspired by her passion for manual techniques, inherited from her grandmothers and family tradition.
Using recycled wool and synthetic fibers, and using ancestral techniques such as felting, crochet, embroidery and other textile manipulations, Vanessa creates pieces that evoke organic and underwater landscapes. Inspired by personal experiences, such as childhood trips to the Caribbean where she witnessed the degradation of coral reefs, she developed an environmental awareness that guides her entire creative process. For Vanessa, art is a powerful tool to raise awareness about the effects of pollution, excessive consumption and the importance of preserving ancient techniques and crafts.
Vanessa’s work is not only a reflection of her passion for the planet, but also an invitation to change. Each piece, created with time, passion and dedication, is unique and unpredictable, symbolizing the delicacy and complexity of the natural world. Through her art, she seeks to inspire the public to adopt more sustainable practices, rethink consumption habits and contribute to the protection of the planet and its ecosystems. All materials used are 100% recycled, coming from waste from the national textile industry.
Recognized for her sustainable textile work, Vanessa idealizes and creates conjectural and visionary visual landscapes that evoke, in an almost biomimetic way, the exuberance of marine ecosystems and the regenerative potential of nature. She has exhibited in cities such as Sydney, New York, London and Tokyo, and is the author of “Coral Vivo”, donated by Portugal to the United Nations, and “Botanical Tapestry”, on display at London Heathrow Airport – Terminal 2.