Quando o exílio começa antes da partida: Fernando Lemos e os seus retratos do tempo da censura

In Salazar's Portugal, where monitored daily life and selective repression invaded all domains of social and cultural life, it becomes essential to inquire whether exile begins before the moment of departure. Drawing from the portraits Fernando Lemos created between 1949 and 1952, this essay explores the sense of exile imposed by the clandestine nature of the "anti-fascist struggle." Instead of a voluntary or involuntary abandonment of the country, this condition of expulsion without displacement, a sort of exile without expatriation, results in the adoption of strategies involving disguises and duplicities to act beyond dictatorial surveillance. Anticipating the words of Jorge de Sena - "I was always an exile, even before leaving Portugal" - Lemos may have been one of the first to grasp the subjective dimension of this type of internal exile preceding his relocation to Brazil in 1953. This essay aims to understand how the dual photographic exposure of 'forbidden' faces takes the form of a strategy to critically unveil a division and duplicity that marks the paradoxical condition of the exiled persona within their own country.