Carpintarias de São Lázaro

R. de São Lázaro 72, 1150-199 Lisboa

17 . 10 . 2025 → 09 . 11 . 2025

thursday - sunday → 12:00 pm – 06:00 pm

Artist

Obayomi Anthony

This project BLUE LETTER witnesses and presents the silent consequences of the brutal systematic rejection, especially the emotional and mental, that result from failed visa applications and the sometimes dehumanizing visa interviews that precedes them.

Borders and diplomatic policies continue to marginalize the world and dictate the freedom of those who live in it, often without much regard for the individual, who has been reduced to a stereotype attached to the country of origin and the passport such an individual holds.

The function of Embassies and consulate offices in theory, are to be gateways for travel and trans-border relationships, but in reality, they serve as the locks on the gate for many travellers and migrants who wish to interact with a world beyond home.

Visa applications get denied in very impersonal, notorious and psychologically abusive ways. This generic mass-produced blue letter, the centre of our story, is the regular and only response, for what is often many months of form filling, requirement hurdles and ever rising application fees of visas to the USA, and some embassies don’t even bother with a such response no matter how generic.

This narrative comes from personal experience and a place of helpless disappointments, a hopeless silence and insufficient responses.