The Landscape Voices at oMuseu
by Mafalda Teixeira (Umbigo magazine)
The pieces on display present us with a kaleidoscopic and wide-ranging perspective tied to the contemporary understanding of landscape, a concept that, while undergoing a process of conceptual crisis and transformation, is becoming increasingly recognised and articulated in the sphere of artistic representation. Urbanisation, the third landscape, placeless urbanism or shared landscapes, all latent terms in the academic realm, are finding their way into the domain of artistic creation and are reflected in numerous works on show. The photographic projects Aphanismos by Artur Leão, Oblíquo by Ana Miriam Rebelo and East Iberia by Sérgio Rolando stand out in this regard. On the one hand, they interact with landscape structures found in the Portuguese collective imagination and the promotion of their casual settings, as well as with the remnants of an architecture and territory shaped by a Soviet legacy, or even with rural landscapes where the inclusion of prehistoric ritual sites fuels a fictional portrait of the Iberian Peninsula’s ancestral traditions and customs.
Aphanismos at DÍNAMO gallery
by Eduarda Neves
By opening a space of fiction between signs and objects, Aphanismos contaminates the connection between meaning and reference. Geological matter transforms into body and pain; times, cultures, and traditions merge; the heavens connect to the earth. While photography depends on the referent and remains tributary to reality, it does not suspend reference but distances itself from the perceptible referent—dolmens and menhirs embody the magic and ritual expressed by stone’s tactile and chromatic properties. A complex and multifaceted hermeneutics evokes the sacralization and mysticism of the cosmos. Accessing a symbolic time and place, precisely the Neolithic period of the Iberian Peninsula, the photographic image reminds us of the affective order of the past.
