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 Artur Leão
In this project, there is an attempt, from an ontological perspective, to travel back in time to the Neolithic period of the Iberian Peninsula, establishing a relationship between artificial constructions and their symbolic value with animism. By recovering notions associated with minerals that carry historical significance, a myriad of unique formations and structures (uranic and chthonic) are recorded that open the way to a multifaceted hermeneutic. Sometimes, these monuments appear to enclose themselves, and their muteness is evident when subjected to interpretative rhizomes around the leitmotif of their edification. Also, a funerary and votive dimension is evoked by a soft evanescence. Guiding the observer through a ghostly veil, which portrays the territory as almost supernatural, the visual narrative suggests a return to the notion of a sacralized Cosmos that mirrored the perception of the world among the ancient peoples of Western Europe. The archaeological sites were always captured during the day, emphasising the role of the sun as an “entity” of paramount significance for Stone Age man, whose fixation and astonishment derived from the participation mystique.
