Marlou Fernanda’s A Time For Everything
Rotterdam-based artist Marlou Fernanda's first major retrospective, A Time for Everything, is in it’s final week at Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. If you haven't been yet, go.
Still from video Marlou Fernanda | Directed by Tim Wes, Film by René Huwae
Spanning ten years of work, the exhibition moves through four chapters of Fernanda's life and practice: large-scale paintings, never-before-seen sketches, handwritten notes and an interactive installation that invites visitors to reflect on their own relationship to self-expression and the right to take up space. It is raw, colourful, personal and quietly confrontational.
Central to the work is Nu-Nu, Fernanda's alter ego, who served for years as the vehicle through which she made herself visible. The exhibition traces Nu-Nu's arc: how it emerged, what it allowed and how Fernanda eventually moved beyond it. This exhibitions shows a journey that touches on identity, family and what it means to find your place in a world that doesn't always make room for you.
“Taking up space has always been an act of resistance for me,” Fernanda writes. “As a young woman of colour, self-taught and a dreamer, I have often had to create space where it wasn’t freely given. This exhibition is that space — not just for me, but for everyone who wonders where and how they are allowed to exist.”
Facing Me, Marlou Fernanda, 2021-2025 | Photo: Aad Hoogendoorn
Already known through presentations at Kunsthal Rotterdam and Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, this is Fernanda's fullest statement yet. Don't miss it.
Marlou Fernanda: A Time for Everything closes 28th June at Wereldmuseum Rotterdam.
Marlou Fernanda, 2025 | Foto: Alexander Santos Lima