Tribute to alum Paulo Chicareli on view at Fotomuseum Hilversum

Realising the installation together

Following Chicareli’s passing, Fotomuseum Hilversum remained committed to presenting his work as part of Layered Realities. In close collaboration with the people who knew him and his practice, Welcome to the House of the Forgotten Ones has now been realised and installed at the museum. His mother Marcia Chicareli, his sister, Priscila Chicareli, Lara Silva Santos and Fabio Furtado contributed to the process from Brazil. In the Netherlands, his friends Luca Tornato Serafini, Ira Grünberger and Andrea Lombardi [contributed to/worked on] the installation. John Fleetwood, Co-Head of Photography at BFA KABK, where Chicareli graduated in 2025, helped coordinate the collaboration between those involved.

In a statement for the exhibition, Marcia, Paulo's mother, says:

“Realising Paulo’s work after his passing has been an experience filled with both pain and profound meaning. As his mother, it is difficult to separate the artist from the son I love and miss every day. Yet, seeing the images, photographs and materials he left behind come together again has felt, in some way, like being close to him.

For me, participating in this process is not only about completing a work that Paulo could not finish himself. It is also about helping his voice continue to be heard. Although Paulo is no longer here, something of him remains present in his images, in his work, and in the people who continue to see and feel what he wanted to say.”

His sister adds:

“It’s impossible for me to speak about Paulo without expressing the immense pride I feel in everything he was and everything he left behind. His work, his voice, and the way he saw the world continue to live on and reach others.”

Regarding the process of reconstructing the exhibition, Lara and Fabio say:

“The essential task to us was to understand, from the notes, indications and records of the original installation Paulo left, the compositional logic he established for the work. And it was a gift to be able to do this, because little by little we found ourselves immersing ever deeper in the beauty of what he created. Amid the pain of grief, it is a way of expressing our love and admiration – and of allowing his work to endure and to grow."

Welcome to the House of the Forgotten Ones

In Welcome to the House of the Forgotten Ones, Chicareli explores queer affection as a political act. LGBTQIA+ people can still face hostility and violence for their appearance or for expressing affection towards their partners in public. Especially sensitive to the resurgence of intolerance worldwide in recent years, Chicareli responds by imagining a public space in which queer love and intimacy can exist freely and visibly.

The installation combines found materials, including photographs of queer people expressing intimacy in public and flyers and posters Chicareli collected from the street. Through collage, he brings these fragments together in a space where small gestures of love become acts of resistance and tenderness becomes part of protest.

The work closely connects to the premise of Layered Realities: Photography & Collage. The group exhibition explores how contemporary artists use collage to challenge the boundaries of photography and address themes including identity, personal and collective histories and the role of images in contemporary life. Chicareli’s combination of found photography, graphic intervention and material collected from public space expands the photographic image into a physical installation, while using collage to propose a different way of looking at queer visibility and public space.

About Paulo Chicareli

Paulo Chicareli (1993–2026) was a Brazilian visual artist and photographer based in Amsterdam. His practice brought together photography, collage, graphic intervention, archival material, and found imagery, developing a visual language centred around love, resistance, intimacy and visibility. In 2025, Chicareli graduated from the BA Photography programme at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK). That same year, he created Almost Every Corner of This City Has Witnessed Our Forbidden Love, documenting and interpreting the relationship between Thieu and Will, a couple living in Breda with whom he formed a meaningful bond. The work was presented as part of Levenslijnen / Life Stories, a collaborative project by Pride Photo and BredaPhoto. Chicareli participated in the BredaPhoto International Talent Programme in 2023 and was selected for Galerie Ron Mandos’ Best of Graduates in 2025.

Layered Realities: Photography & Collage

Layered Realities brings together fifteen contemporary artists from the Netherlands and abroad who use collage to explore and expand the boundaries of photography. Working across photography, installation, video and sculptural forms, the artists address themes including identity, (family) history and the role of images in a world saturated with visual information. Welcome to the House of the Forgotten Ones (2025) by Paulo Chicareli is now on view as part of Layered Realities: Photography & Collage at Fotomuseum Hilversum.