Susana Cereja

Susana Cereja (Mafra, Portugal, 1992) began her academic path in Architecture in Lisbon, complemented by a brief period in Germany. In parallel, she developed her practice in drawing, illustration and printmaking at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon and at Ar.Co — Centre for Art and Visual Communication. It was through this trajectory that she found in the Arraiolos stitch a material and a language capable of bringing tradition, drawing and construction together.

During her studies, she began her professional career at the studio of artist Joana Vasconcelos, where she worked for five years. That experience consolidated a multidisciplinary approach that continues to shape her practice, now moving across tapestry, sculpture, installation and public space.

Her work investigates themes including femininity, freedom, collective memory, territory and belonging. Starting from ancestral textile knowledge, she reconfigures materials, scales and processes traditionally associated with the domestic and the handmade, moving them into a contemporary language and, increasingly, into architectural, community-based and public-art contexts.

Alongside her exhibition practice, she develops community-based artistic projects and intergenerational collaborative processes. She maintains her studio on the outskirts of Lisbon, where she continues to expand the possibilities of the Arraiolos stitch and contemporary textile practice through new materials, scales and contexts.