Artistic Work

This piece is an open, unfinished song to be explored and played by whoever visits it. It takes the form of a ceremonial preparation in which the artist invites the audience to take part in a practice of metaphorical observation and veneration of the Moon, using sound as a way of approaching the transcendental. The artist created this installation through an intimate observation of the natural territory of the inland Algarve. It begins with an instrument built from a log gathered while still smouldering after a controlled burn. Metal tines made from scrap found in the fields were fitted to this wood. The sound produced is amplified and played through a round metal sheet that mimics the full Moon. The shadows of the branches of the trees that grow where the material was gathered are cast onto the instrument and the metal, as if the viewer were looking at the Moon through these branches. Encouraging the contemplation of the mystery and strangeness that dwell in the fundamental reality of all things, the installation invites the viewer to feel their own spiritual and emotional interpretation through direct interaction with it.

A concert in which the artist combines his intimate songs with the atmospheric soundscapes of his art installation “Sons do Chão”. At this event he presented new songs written after the release of his latest album “Feiticeira”, including instrumental passages played on the logs gathered in the scrubland and turned into the musical instruments that make up “Sons do Chão”. The installation was later shown at Moínho do Leitão, where visitors could interact with the instruments and explore their sound first-hand. Inviting those who visit to reinterpret the surrounding nature through this immersive, sensory experience.

At the root of this project was a physical, sonic and spiritual exploration of the inland Algarve. More as Earth and ecosystem than as territory. More focused on the landscape and the non-human beings that inhabit it than on its people. This is an open installation and composition, to be explored, felt and played by whoever visits it. In these objects and sounds the artist sought to capture and hold the way he experiences the natural world, and his fascination with the beautiful, the mysterious and the strange that dwell in the fundamental reality of all things. The carob and olive logs that make up the installation were gathered in the scrubland and turned into musical instruments. The videos and sounds were recorded and created alongside this process. Mateus Verde is a musician and visual artist from the Algarve. In his work, often inspired by nature and its mysteries, he explores atmospheric, dreamlike landscapes, creating an imagery that is intimate, mysterious and at times esoteric.

Addressing pollution in the Ria Formosa, particularly the colourful plastic litter that builds up along its shores. Several litter collections were made. This video captures a sensory experience, a continuous, literal dive into the litter collected in the Ria Formosa. “The materials used in the exhibition were taken from the vast coastline of the Ria Formosa, ridding this beautiful territory of the litter that would be used to build the pieces in the exhibition. On leaving, visitors were invited to make a donation; the money raised went to RIAS – Centro de Recuperação e Investigação de Animais Selvagens Ria Formosa (Ria Formosa Wildlife Rehabilitation and Research Centre), which works every day for the survival of the species that live in and depend on the Ria.”

This project grows out of research into and exploration of my own personal history. I felt compelled to listen to, record and create an archive of the tales my maternal grandmother told me when I was a child. After so many years, these stories were only faded, incomplete memories to me. Hearing them again brought a torrent of images and emotions. Starting from these impressions, I composed photographs meant to record the mental and sensory image that arises on hearing the descriptions of the settings and characters that fill these worlds. Images inevitably tinged by the experience I had of imagining them as a child. Above all, I tried to give form to the mysterious, terrifying, beautiful and incomprehensible presence that is felt in each story. During this process, the antagonistic relationship between the human being and the monstrous, the incomprehensible forest and the non-human, became especially important. The inside of the earth and its entrails appear as a symbol of the cryptic, indecipherable nature of non-human consciousness, which, in the stories, seems irreconcilable with the figure of the Hero. The images were made as compositions in several layers by overlapping panes of glass. For this I used the old, dusty windows taken from my grandfather’s former house. A house where my grandmother also lived when my mother and my aunts were children. With these panes I created overlays using natural elements gathered around the property and various lights, including two spherical lamps.

Two videos created from the photographic series Floresta de Prata are projected from opposite sides onto the semi-transparent screen. The images were compiled and transformed using stop-motion animation and various other manipulations. Each passage of image or video is accompanied by a sound composition that plays together with its video projection. Through the video projections, each coming from a different side and overlapping on a central plane, the work seeks to emulate the glass, or the window, that was the physical starting point for creating these images. An outside, an inside, always moving and trading places. The videos on each channel play independently and in random order. Each video has a different length. In this way the videos, and their sounds, interleave and blend at random, potentially generating new meanings and compositions. Through these overlays, new images, new sounds, new meanings and new stories are created. The aim is to open a space for representation beyond the human, and beyond the story chained to the linearity of the hero myth that runs through the vast majority of the tales and myths of Western civilisation.

Short synopsis: The night is dark and a man walks through the scrubland carrying his hoe. Arriving at a place perhaps chosen beforehand, he raises the tool and digs relentlessly. The hole grows deeper with each stroke. His labour done, the digger steps into the hole he has opened, crossing into an underground, incomprehensible world. From the indecipherable a light blossoms that dazzles and consumes, hinting at a new portal. The full short film can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaaiwAYcFUI