Step into the surreal, poetic world of Flávia Junqueira, a Brazilian artist who transforms historical spaces into stage-like dreamscapes using balloons, bubbles, and a distinct visual language that blurs the line between memory and imagination. As part of her North American debut with Whistler Contemporary Gallery, Flávia shares the deeper stories behind her process, symbolism, and enduring fascination with theatrical spaces.

Check Out Flávia's Works HERE

Your work beautifully blends photography, history, and theatricality. What first drew you to capturing these grand and historical spaces in such a dreamlike way? 

Since the beginning of my journey, I’ve always been fascinated by the relationship between time, space, and memory. My interest in grand historical spaces began early in my career, when I worked as an intern for a renowned theater set designer. Following him through backstage areas, stages, and scenic architectures allowed me to explore historic theaters and understand the symbolic power these places carry. Theaters, palaces, ruins—they are built to last, to convey power, culture, and permanence. As I came closer to these spaces, I felt an almost inevitable urge to transform them into aesthetic platforms for new ways of thinking about art, by creating situations that evoke theatricality and dream. It was from this impulse that I began to develop my research in staged photography, seeking to instate in these places a new narrative layer—one that is sensitive, symbolic, and open to the imagination. 

How did the idea of incorporating balloons into your work come about? What do they symbolize for you?

The balloons first appeared as a way to access childhood memories and children’s parties—moments that, in a sense, “stage” and “theatricalize” everyday life, suspending it in brief instants of desire, pleasure, and celebration. Over time and through practice, this element also gained a pictorial dimension in my process: it became a means of image construction, almost like a spatial painting. Each intervention is conceived individually, and the balloons are manually installed, one by one, directly on site, in dialogue with the architecture and the camera’s gaze. As I continued this work, I also developed a deeper understanding of the relationship between balloons and time. Due to their ephemeral nature, balloons deflate, disappear—they’re made to last briefly. When placed within historical heritage sites, built to endure for centuries and preserve institutional narratives, they create a powerful conceptual contrast that I find deeply compelling. Beyond their playful symbolism, balloons represent a gesture of suspension, an interval, a moment that resists being fixed. They float for a moment within memory-laden, solemn spaces—like a visual sigh. By photographing this encounter between the ephemeral and the enduring, I propose another way of recording time: one that is sensitive, fleeting, and affective. It’s about confronting permanence with delicacy, and recognizing that fragility can also be monumental.

You also use soap bubbles in your works. What role do they play within the scenes? 

For me, soap bubbles are perhaps the purest expression of impermanence. They last only a few seconds, created on site with a simple, manual gesture, and vanish into the air almost instantly. Their presence marks the present moment—the exact instant when something happens and then ceases to exist. Even when subtle in the images, the bubbles produce sparkles, reflections, and distortions that slightly alter the composition. I like to think that they disrupt the stability of the scene, as if suggesting that not everything is as solid or fixed as it appears. In dialogue with the historical spaces I use—defined by the rigidity of stone and architectural permanence—they introduce a layer of lightness and instability, visually challenging the setting. Moreover, the bubbles play an important formal role in the construction of the images. Often, their shine and movement come to occupy the foreground, shifting attention away from the balloon. This dynamic allows me to build visual layers within the same scene—a superimposition of form, time, and matter, which is something I constantly seek in my artistic practice. I like to create images that don’t exhaust themselves at first glance but gradually reveal invisible, subtle, and temporary layers. 

Your scenarios are always devoid of people, yet full of presence. What does this emptiness represent? 

Emptiness is a deliberate and fundamental choice in my work. By removing human bodies from the scene, space is opened for the viewer to project themselves into the image—as if the setting were inviting them to occupy that place. The balloons and bubbles take on the role of presence, of silent characters inhabiting the space and bearing witness to its history. They are faceless figures, but they carry time, fragility, and gesture. This emptiness also intensifies the theatricality of the images. The scene is set, the light is there—everything feels as if waiting for something—or perhaps something has already happened. I like to think of this moment as a suspended time, a pause between past and present, where silence says a lot. This relationship with the absence of the body began to take shape in my early works, such as In the Company of Objects(2008), a series of self-portraits in which I piled myself among domestic objects. Back then, my body was the only one present amid the excess of layers, almost swallowed by the setting. Over time, I realized that what truly interested me was the space itself—its architecture, textures, and symbolism—and the way it speaks of us, even in the absence of any human figure. Removing my body from the image was a natural gesture, part of the maturation of my research. Today, my work continues to reflect on where we are and how we inhabit the world—and how these places shape, mirror, and reveal us. But that doesn’t mean the body can’t return. With each new work, the process also transforms, and I always leave the possibility of movement open.