Statement 2019
Transcription of the statement for the 21st Biennial
The concept of “expanded image” with which I define the photographs of the Ousadia, Majestade! series stemmed from an attempt to observe empty, social, political and also emotional spaces through their inherent absences, i.e., to create an Image of Absence. An expansion beyond the limits of visuality and materiality, refuting the documentary nature of photography. The elements I’m interested in capturing are precisely those that elude the technique of photography. One of the ways to do this was by inverting the procedure of the Becher couple: the fixed, central element of the framing is the dead body, which is nevertheless not visible.
When I reflect on the issue of artistic practice and photography in an environment of activism and positive and affirmative action, I ask myself, how to focus on the activity of asking questions and resist the temptation to propose answers? Perhaps the art of politics is capable of combining theoretical irresponsibility and purposeful freedom with emotional commitment. A question arose in the conversations I had throughout the research and remains unanswered: what if this was all just a bad dream? And if so, how to wake up from it? My practice is an endless search for ways to question the absurd.
The cultural experience reflects this nation disputing the territory in its depth, revealing the perspective of the struggles over it: the conquest of the exotic, of bodies, of labor. Insertion in this historical perspective is marked, in my case, by a rupture: the recognition of the impossibility of representing the land, whether the size of the territory or the density of the element. Part of my practice has become an investigation of how to see through the opacity of this ubiquitous land.