It has been a decade since Estelle Valente began her work at the São Luiz Theatre.
What started intuitively has evolved into a continuous and profound relationship with the space, the artists, and the stories built here.
The exhibition presents a visual journey through ten years of photographic presence at the theatre: images of performances, backstage glimpses, portraits and moments of silence captured in the emptiness of corridors and stages.
More than a retrospective, it is a celebration of the complicity between photography and theatre — two ways of seeing, of freezing time and creating memory.
It is also a sensitive testimony of the inner life of São Luiz and its role as a place of creation and gathering.
Patent exhibition at the Teatro São Luiz (Various spaces at the theatre) until 19 July.
Exhibition open on performance days.
Free entry subject to capacity.
More information at teatrosaoluiz.en
BIOGRAPHY
Estelle Valente was born in France, a country with which she maintains a deep connection, and chose Lisbon as her home 15 years ago — a city whose sunshine she cannot do without.
In 2012, she began her collaboration with fado singer Gisela João, which continues to this day. Between 2015 and 2024, she was the official photographer for the São Luiz Municipal Theatre, where she photographed rehearsals, shows and communication campaigns.
Stage photography is the central focus of her work. She continues to collaborate with theatre companies and, this season, is the official photographer for the Variedades Theatre. She also works in the areas of portraiture and concert photography.
The year 2018 marked a turning point in her career: she held her first exhibition, Carla no Papel, in Setúbal, where actress Carla Maciel embodied great divas of 20th-century cinema, such as Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo, and Marlene Dietrich. In the same year, she presented the exhibition Le Regard d’Estelle in Paris, followed by an artistic residency at Espace Cardin. To mark the 20th anniversary of José Saramago’s Nobel Prize, she was invited by Anabela Mota Ribeiro to illustrate the book Por Saramago with her photographs.
Between 2019 and 2020, she collaborated with GQ Portugal, where she took portraits of cultural figures. She taught photography at Academia Gerador for four years.
The year 2025 also marks ten years dedicated to theatre and dance photography. The celebrations began with the exhibition L’Art en Scène, at MIMO — Museu da Imagem em Movimento de Leiria (Leiria Museum of the Moving Image), open from September 2025 to January 2026, and will culminate with an exhibition at the place where it all began, the São Luiz Theatre, starting in March 2026.
Her work always seeks to add poetry to the image. She likes to photograph what does not exist.
