Project 48
Perfect Conditions to Flourish - Carla Rebelo
curated by Cristina Reid
November 14th - December 19th, in conjunction with Loop Video Art Festival. Opening reception Friday November 14th from 19h
For “Perfect Conditions to Flourish”, artist Carla Rebelo presents a new video and photography installation at Tangent Projects gallery as part of Loop Video Art Festival 2026. The work, an artistic research project, conceives the garden as a microcosm reflecting the broader relationships between humans and nature.
The garden is not nature in its pure state, but a space shaped by human principles that provide structure, control, and functions. These functions have evolved over time — for example, from being a place associated with beauty and harmony to becoming a symbol of imperial power. Yet, even within this artificial space, creation, rest, adaptation, and coexistence emerge. In this context, Carla explores the multidimensionality of gardens and how they can be subverted to become spaces of transformation and resistance.
The starting point of the project is texts and reflections on the agronomic concept of “meteorisation” used by Amílcar Cabral as a political metaphor: just as soil is continuously formed and eroded, liberation should also be understood as a permanent process, not a fixed state achieved once and for all. Cabral focused on preparing people, language, and the land for a constant “becoming,” capable of confronting not only colonialism but also future forms of oppression and environmental destruction — which are evident today.
Carla Rebelo (1994, Sao Tome and Principe) is an interdisciplinary artist working between Lisbon and Barcelona.
She works across photography, video, and installation to explore instability, ambiguity, and contradiction within the tense dialogue between body and place. Carla embraces walking and writing as research tools that surface new layers of understanding as she engages with themes of language, memory, desire, and space.
With a background in Aerospace Engineering, she received photographic training at El Observatorio in Barcelona, specialising in photographic narratives. She participated in the Catchupa Factory artist residency for emerging photographers in Mindelo and in the Affective Ecologies artist residency at Hangar in Lisbon, both supported by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Her work has been showcased in group and solo exhibitions in Cape Verde, Mozambique, Martinique, Portugal, and Spain.
Cristina Reid (1993, New York) is a multidisciplinary artist currently based in Barcelona.
She has a bachelor's degree in Art History from Syracuse University (New York, 2016) and an MFA in Artistic Production and Research with a focus in Art and Technology of the Image (ATI) at the University of Barcelona, where she presented her thesis at La Capella (June 2025). She has a diploma in Studio Arts from Metàfora Studio Arts Program (Barcelona, 2023).
Cristina’s video work has been exhibited during Loop Festival City Screen (Barcelona 2022), Sala Equis (Madrid 2023), 200 Cent (Barcelona 2023), and during StripArt Festival (Barcelona 2024), where she was selected for a residency at ESFar Cultural’s Casa d’Artistes (Menorca, 2024).
Solo exhibitions include Maintenance at Espai Souvenir through the framework of Art Nou Emerging Art Festival (Barcelona 2024) and at NAVEL art space through the framework of Proyector festival (Madrid 2025). She is currently a resident studio artist at Tangent Projects studios.