…. has as its working hypothesis to establish a measuring system, a visual unit in landscape matters, a concept related to environmental landscape. The work takes place and continues during a time of a search, of origins, of what is essential, tectonic. It is also a game, between photographic memory past and future.
The series’ first appearance proposes a search for the “unit” in landscape if it exists. A square meter rectangle (the frame) of nature is photographed, with similar lighting. The initial resulting photographs are assembled into a larger panel and printed. The individual photos are fragments with various ideas in mind; from soil, leaves, organic matter, living trees, greenhouse covers, decay, smell, to name but a few. Way home is a cartographic and ongoing process, a way, a path, searching for a fundamenta essence of what is tentatively named environmental landscape in photography.
Precedents
An initial approach to this work process was explored in Estranged trees, where parts of trees where removed from their context, their wider meaning, by the photographic process. From a curatorial vision this fragmenting exploration of landscape is also present in the collaborative project paisagem estranha entranha.
Future: towards a definition
Currently this work is headed towards an Environmental landscape definition, a term being tested, further defined. Currently it is treated as an aesthetic experience of landscape incorporating environmental / natural sciences criteria. From measurement to color, these criteria are being studied towards a more precise definition. In several ways it may be a replacement for, or a preciser term, for the “essence” of landscape (photography).
Public appearance
Way home was first shown in 2017, as part of the group show Fotografias e assuntos de paisagem a Sul. Translatable to photographs and landscape matters to the south it was curated by fellow photographer Paulo Catrica. The show included photographic work by:
Fernando Brito, Alexandre Inglez, Beatriz Pedrosa, Sebastiano Raimondo and Miguel Proença.
About work
title: Way home, started 2017.
prints: fine art prints, colour pigment inkjet on cotton based paper, 112 x 150 cm, 2017
presented: exhibition Photographs and landscape matters to the South [Fotografias e assuntos de paisagem a Sul], curated by Paulo Catrica, June 2017, at Casa das Artes.