Elen Braga
Director
Elen Braga is a visual artist known for her monumental textile works. She also creates sculptures, videos and performances. Born in 1984 in Maranhão, Brazil, Braga was introduced to textiles by her mother, which led her early on to discover how craft and identity can reinforce one another in interesting ways.
Her practice consists both self-imposed challenges and meditative, labour-intensive processes. Her works delve into primarily religious and mythological narratives. She explores how these stories continue to shape the behaviours and beliefs of contemporary societies.
Braga began her practice in Brazil, her home country, working mainly with performance and video. Since moving to Belgium in 2016, her interest in working with textiles has grown steadily, particularly with the monumental project Elen ou Hubris (2020), measuring 24 metres long, 5 metres wide, and weighing nearly 200 kilos. The piece was displayed for five hours at the Triumphal Arch in Brussels’ Jubelpark. Thematically, the work explored the boundary between ambition and hubris, as Braga wove together mythological and biblical stories with personal reflections about pride and self-discipline. Braga spent nearly two years working on the piece.
Braga completed a post-master’s degree in Advanced Performance and Scenography Studies (A·PASS) in Brussels in 2018. She has undertaken residencies at AIR Antwerp (now MORPHO) in 2016, at ISELP in 2020 and at the Buitenplaats Brienenoord project in Rotterdam in 2021. Her work has been exhibited in leading museums such as WIELS, M HKA, Mu.ZEE, CC Strombeek, KANAL – Centre Pompidou and Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, and is also part of the Flemish Community’s collection.
In the near future, Braga will appear at CAMPO. From September, she will give the entrance hall of CAMPO nieuwpoort a new visual identity. In addition, she is creating a textile piece for Petrushka, the new production by artistic director Michiel Vandevelde, and within a few seasons Braga will create a production at CAMPO.
