Interview with Joel Valabrega on the INDEX Biennial in Braga

22 May 2026

Interviewby Orsola Vannocci Bonsi

Interview with Joel Valabrega on the INDEX Biennial in Braga

Interview by Orsola Vannocci Bonsi

For the new edition of the INDEX Biennial in Braga, dedicated to the theme of power, curator Joel Valabrega has conceived an exhibition that explores this notion in an intuitive and multilayered way. Bringing together works across different media and unfolding through multiple locations throughout the city, the exhibition reflects on visible and invisible forms of power, the idea of afterlife, and the ways in which peripheral perspectives can become spaces of knowledge and resistance.

Orsola Bonsi: In many of the artworks you selected, power seems primarily associated with control.

Joel Valabrega: The notion of “power” is so broad today that it is difficult to define. I see it less as direct control and more as something that guides our lives (already a form of control). What interested me was highlighting invisible forms of power, the forces that truly shape everyday life today: silence, sound, immaterial systems. As James Bridle suggests, much of contemporary consumption is immaterial: we don’t see it, yet it surrounds and shapes us. I wanted to present forms of power that are not immediately visible or canonically recognisable.

OB: The relationship between visible and invisible seems central.

JV: Yes. One example is Pauline Baudry’s work Silent (2016). Silence here is not absence but presence: gestures, breathing, smoke, and the sounds of the city create a politically charged atmosphere. At the end, silence is broken by a song. Silence then becomes dual: both imposed absence and active choice. In today’s saturated visual culture, silence can feel more powerful than constant noise. Raven Chacon’s installation also explores this. In Storm Pattern(2021), drone recordings from protest sites are transformed into an immersive sonic composition. An invisible military presence becomes physically oppressive and tangible through sound.

OB: You describe the exhibition as being “deliberately on the surface”. What do you mean?

JV: It relates to how social media and constant information flow have reduced our attention. Everything now shares the same space: memes, war images, advertising, and catastrophe. I wanted the exhibition to reflect this condition of equalised attention. At the same time, it is also a strategy of accessibility. The themes of the exhibition are heavy and could become overwhelming, so I wanted multiple layers of engagement. A child can experience it intuitively, while others can access deeper conceptual readings. I’m not interested in forcing an educational structure onto the audience: art should remain visceral and immediate.

Works like Cemile Sahin’s Road Runner (2025) and BB – Born to Bloom(2025) operate in this way: they address violence, borders, surveillance, and identity through fragmented narratives or videogame aesthetics. They produce an immediate bodily reaction before any intellectual interpretation. They don’t demand long decoding sessions; they leave an emotional trace.

OB: Art should provoke feeling, but also lead to reflection.

JV: Exactly. Artists are not researchers. Research may inform their work, but their final output is something else. Researchers produce structured knowledge; artists produce experiences, affects, and forms.

OB: There is a non-forensic approach running through the exhibition.

JV: Yes. It is partly intuitive, not strictly driven by historical analysis but by lived experience. And it also comes from performance: even without live art, I want an immediate emotional response, a gut reaction. Works may not provide answers immediately, but they accompany you afterwards into daily life.

Stine Deja’s GRAVE MATTERS (2025) reflects this. Her “virtual coffins” are ambiguous: death appears peaceful, even joyful. There is birdsong, calmness, a sense of awakening. It creates uncertainty around death, which remains a taboo in Western culture, despite being universal. Perhaps it should be integrated more naturally into life.

OB: How does power relate to the afterlife in the show?

JV: The exhibition wants to connect power, technology, and the afterlife. Technology has become a major source of posthumous power. It is now difficult to disappear after death: data persists, and AI can recreate voices or images of the deceased. This can be comforting, but also a form of control over absence.“Griefbots” extend this logic by simulating relationships with the dead, almost like a new form of constructed spirituality. At the same time, even in life, we lack full autonomy over death and how we are treated after it. That seems deeply problematic.

OB: Thinking about the afterlife, while presenting the exhibition you also mentioned the idea of the loop.

JV: By “loop” I mean circularity. Power is circular because it structures every aspect of life, from the macro to the micro, shaping work, politics, personal relationships, the art world, everything. The exhibition reflects this idea in two ways.First, power dynamics begin in childhood and continue even into the afterlife. From birth to death, and beyond, power is embedded within this loop. Second, the exhibition itself is fragmented across the city. There is no single linear path. Visitors create their own route and their own experience of the exhibition. That was important to me because there isn’t one answer or one perspective. Time itself is not truly linear.

OB: I noticed that children appear in many of the works in the exhibition.

JV: Indeed, because children perceive power differently. They absorb everything more intensely and without social filters, that makes power dynamics more visible in their perspective.Many works in the exhibition involve youth or ambiguous youthful figures: Jonna Kina, Shuang Li, Pedro Goster, Gabriel Abrantes. Children notice details adults often overlook. For example, in Pedro Goter’s Fanfictional Politics (2022), political spaces are shown alongside overlooked details like floral arrangements. Adults focus on official discourse, while children notice what surrounds it.

OB: This also highlights that power spares no one.

JV: Exactly. In Shuang Li’s work, a kid says: “When I grow up, I want to be a dictator.”As children, my sister and I used to say exactly the same thing: we couldn’t wait to grow up and take over the world.

OB: In Gabriel Abrantes’ work, small ghost-like figures discuss serious topics through short loops, offering a sharp commentary on contemporary political discourse and online polarization. How do you think this is connected to power?

JV: Today, opinion is often based on fragmented information. Ideology becomes performance. Even activism can become identity construction. These dynamics form a social power structure where alignment and cancellation function as currency. Abrantes captures that with humour and tragedy at once, evidencing, also, that power also exists in all human relationships: family, love, conflict.

OB: How did Braga shape the exhibition and your curatorial approach?

JV: Very significantly. Peripheral contexts often allow more freedom than major art centres. If shown in a place like Berlin, the exhibition might have felt less urgent due to audience familiarity In Braga, openness was striking. The fragmented city structure also helped integrate the works into daily life rather than isolating them in a white cube. Some venues had never hosted contemporary art before, which created productive negotiation.

OB: Maybe there is more to learn from the periphery than to bring to it.

JV: Absolutely. None of the works was rejected despite their political intensity. That openness made the experience particularly meaningful. The audience was incredibly mixed, different generations, different social backgrounds. It wasn’t only an “art crowd.” That was beautiful to witness.

BIOGRAPHY

Orsola Vannocci Bonsi is a cultural producer and advisor who has called Lisbon home for eight years. Through her work, she fosters connections through her research and the projects she helps bring to life. With experience as a sales director and gallery manager in various Portuguese art galleries, she was also project manager and artistic director of FEA Lisboa, founded the curatorial collective Da Luz Collective, and contributed to the programming of festivals in Italy and Portugal.

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