Without a Past
Felícia Pinho Oliveira
Exhibition, MIRA FORUM
14 of September 2024—09 of November 2024
Without a Past is a project about the archive of Porto’s Casa da Roda and the memories of those who passed through it.
The Casa da Roda was an institution designed to shelter children abandoned anonymously by their parents. It existed in Porto between the 17th and 19th centuries and had three different locations over time, of which no trace remains.
The children were usually abandoned with their trousseau and an object of various kinds that distinguished them from the others. This object was called a ‘sign’ and would allow the child to be recovered
unequivocally in the future.
The focus of this project is precisely the ‘signs’ that marked the children of Roda do Porto. The project also includes the Roda books, as well as the spaces of the Porto District Archive, which holds this immense collection of more than 180 metres of documentation.
Without a Past aims to portray the aesthetics of abandonment in the 19th century and recover the memory of children who were doubly neglected, by society and by history.
This exhibition is part of Encontros da Imagem 2024.
This exhibition is part of project (IN)visibilidades e Derivas
Support: República Portuguesa | DGARTES
Biographical Note
Felícia Pinho Oliveira (2000, Aveiro) is a photographer and graduated in Communication Sciences from the University of Porto. In 2023 she completed her master’s degree in Audiovisual Communication, specialising in Photography and Documentary Cinema, at the School of Media
Arts and Design (ESMAD). She took part in the group exhibition ‘Todoo Presente’ (2023, P.
Artes) and is the author of the book and exhibition.
‘Sem Passado’ (2023, Arquivo Distrital do Porto). She took part in the Plano Frontal photographic residency as part of the Melgaço International Documentary Festival, 2024.
Her academic and artistic career is mainly related to the possibility of rethinking history and creating different narratives by investigating the past, ruins and archives.
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