Fernanda Carvalho is an interdisciplinary Brazilian artist based between Chicago and New York City. She works with film, photography, performance, writing, books, and installations. Her work addresses topics including social, political, and cultural issues, with emphasis on Latinx studies, race, mental health, surrealism, and human behavior analysis.
Her work has been featured in film festivals in Italy and Sweden as well as in annual film festivals at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in “My Dreams These Days,” a 12-hour film and music festival in Chicago. She has showcased work in exhibitions at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received the New Outstanding Artist Award in 2021; has also founded and directed the first Art Contest in 2020 at Borough of Manhattan Community College, and has created public art with Bronx River Art Center in New York. Besides studio work, she has also done research on synesthesia and film for the Beacon Conference 2021.
Boas Vindas, 2021, 35mm color film photograph, Boas Vindas, 2021, 35mm color film photograph
Untitled (My Bench My Life series), 2020, digital photograph, Untitled (My Bench My Life series), 2020, digital photograph
Documentary and street photography is an essential aspect of my art practices. My Bench My Life series depicts multiple civilians sitting on benches in NYC before, during, and after the pandemic. Even though NYC is a big city, oftentimes they are alone and this solitude portrayed in the series is intriguing.
Through art, I am dedicated to instigating questions, channeling the idea of noticing and paying attention to the world around us, and bringing to light issues that are often put aside. The combination of film, photography, new media, performance, writing, artist books, mixed media, and installations together with my curiosity about other academic subjects lead me to incorporate knowledge from different fields including history, linguistics, psychology, and astronomy into my art practices. As a queer person of color, I search for answers about colonization, Latinx terms, multiculturalism, and Brazilian history as I dive into races, languages, and injustices. My art also assists in the process of healing by hosting projects that help the audience to relate to each other, empathize, and grieve together. Oftentimes I use surrealism to speak about identity, the importance of time, the beauty and simplicity of nature, and our connection with it. I make interactive artwork that invites the viewer to partake in making meaning as I call us to see the world through another perspective; to be thinkers and to be makers.