Marta Silva Coelho

For some time now, my projects have been carried out in collaboration with other people, where the exchange becomes fundamental and an innovative driving force. Relationships with others are built on a horizontal plane, which allows me to access their personal archives, their experiences, their memories with the intention of recounting experiences that have a universal force.

The theme most present in my work is that of identity, particularly cultural identity. With the people involved, we explore how this identity is lost, how it can be reconstructed and what are the different influences that compose it and make it so unique.

For this project, I was interested in the issue of migrant women who perform domestic work and quite easily find themselves in situations of deep fragility: such as deprivation of liberty, which includes the withdrawal of their phone, their passport, preventing them from returning home, or simply from leaving the house and expressing themselves freely with the family they work for. Physical, psychological and sexual violence are also committed.

Because these situations occur in the privacy of the home, they go unnoticed to the point of becoming invisible. And it is precisely on this invisibility that I wanted to focus my attention. Indeed, the collages seem to demonstrate a certain discretion, an impostured tranquility. We can see written letters and postcards that were never sent, unable to reach another place and ask for help, and some images belonging to my archives, my personal collection and documentaries dedicated on this subject. The images show women’s bodies whose faces have been made anonymous and hidden because many women have faced similar situations and do not need to be represented by a specific face.

The written references are also true testimonies collected in “My sleep is my only break”, published by Amnesty International in 2014. Other references were written by a woman in my life, who wanted to share moments of great discomfort as a mother, migrant woman and domestic worker. I wanted to translate the texts into different languages ​​in order to reach a larger number of spectators and because these are situations that can occur in very different places. This project was carried out in the hope of drawing attention to indifference and making more visible what happens in invisibility.