
Terra cinza – a conscientious position is part of the cycle Floresta – Ecossistema Sustentável (The forest – a sustainable eco-system) organized by the Álvaro de Campos Municipal Library in partnership with Tavira em Transição, Movimento de Eco-Cidadania Ativa (Tavira in transition, an active eco-citizenship movement), This cycle includes the photography exhibition Terra cinza – a conscientious choice by photographer Miguel Proença, and a group of conferences and debates concerning the forest.
Opens on 21st March, at the Biblioteca Álvaro de Campos in Tavira.
Thanks to:
Invitation design: Patrícia Proença
Paula Ferreira (Biblioteca Municipal Álvaro de Campos, Tavira),
Maurízio Russo (Land Art), António Costa (Viragem Lab – impressão das provas).
Terra cinza – tomada de consciência (a conscientious position)
Terra cinza (2012) started out with a clearly defined motivation and intention in time and space, both dimensions originating in Tavira, more precisely in the devastating fires of the summer 2012. As the initial urgency and motivation gained some distance in time, the work has been invested with a new orientation and intention.
Thus Terra Cinza is here reconfigured as a long term photography work concerning the environment, through landscape photography, in the process of assuming a conscientious position. Terra Cinza – conscientious position** (2016) becomes a search for situations that raise pertinent questions for the author, questions about the local landscape, re-presented as photographs.
This work is presented at a time where the local population is confronted with serious environmental challenges including inland fracking projects financed by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (via Partex) and extensive greenhouse expansion financed by multi-national and offshore corporations. The origins of the 2012 fires are also not clearly explained but coincided with the installation/welding of wind generator components on the Caldeirão hill range during hot summer days.
** see Nuno Calvet Além Terra, Mario Giacomelli Presa de Coscienza sulla natura, and Fay Godwin, Land, are some of the authors/works that served as references for the current work.
More on these iniciatives at the Biblioteca Álvaro de Campos blog and about Terra Cinza – on the project page.