Book Presentations
29.09.
A Simultaneous Book Launch
On the 29th of September, from 7pm, don't miss the simultaneous book launch of "House of Seven Ladies” by Tito Mouraz, “The dew of Little things” by Carlos Lobo, “O Corpo Neutro“ by Filipe dos Santos Barrocas, "Day X - Lapse Rate" by Pedro Guimarães and Miguel Clara Vasconcelos, and "(O)Porto" by José Bacelar.
This event will occur simultaneously with the Opening of the solo exhibition "Stone Memory”by Maria Trabulo.
House of the Seven Ladies
by Tito Mouraz
In the Beira-Alta region of Portugal, where Tito Mouraz was born and brought up, there is a house that is said to be haunted by the ghosts of seven women, all maiden sisters. One of them was a witch. On nights of the full moon, the women, in their white gowns, would fly from their balcony over to the leafy branches of the chestnut across the street. From there they would seduce men who passed-by.
Mouraz explores the myth of this place through raw, moody black and white images that capture the sense of the night, the fumes, the moon, the sounds of the trees. It is an environment where the past resonates deeply and within which the people portrayed seem attached, like trees, to the land in which they they live. Beira-Alta shaped Mouraz as a child and through his persistent return he searches out the slow changes of time through the gradual aging and transformation of a landscape.
Tito Mouraz studied Visual Arts and Photography in Porto and continues to live and work in the city. He has won a number of awards including the Emergentes DST International Photography Award and since 2009 he has exhibited widely throughout Europe with shows in Portugal, Spain, Poland, France and the UK. He is represented in Portugal by Módulo - Centro Difusor de Arte (Lisbon) and in France by Voies Off Gallery (Arles). His work is in the BES Art public collection and in several private collections.
(O)Porto
by José Bacelar
Porto is a place of memories. I've got some roots here. It's a place I like it, a place where I always return. I have been photographing the city, family, friends and acquaintances. I take pictures of them, as far as we meet. Somehow, they all live in Porto.
I come across places that have an affective effecte on me. I captured them with my camera. They reflect what I feel, how I feel, what I am and where I'm going. And I’ve been wandering a lot in the city. Porto, the city of wandering, of passions and of life meaning. I get lost in the city that I know and in the city that I keep discovering.
I keep re-encounter old friends and acquaintances and people I know, I meet knew pepople. Recently I’ve stopped seeing the city as a whole. I began to see it as fragments, fragments of my identity, of how I feel. I am part of Porto, as much as I am part of any city.
The journey, the room, the two in bed, the strong look of closeness, the face behind the buildings, the frendship and unconditional love, the dog, the chindren of others, hers and mine, the wings of the Angel, she's asleep, I look in the mirror, a hug, a touch on the hand, the trees, the palm trees, marks on the body and on the rock, the memories of home...
Anyway, the city is the soul that inhabits it. A part of Porto that can be felt. This is the Porto that I feel, because "what we see is not what he see, but who you are".
The Dew of Little Things
by Carlos Lobo
"I was in Lebanon from the 5th to the 14th of January of 2011. I strolled around both the empty and busy streets of Beirut, taking photos and trying to come to grips with this complex city. Traces of history and previous wars were to be found everywhere. On the 12th of January, the lebanese government collapsed. A taxi driver passed by and shouted: We have no government!
Suddenly the same streets were now filled with military soldiers and taking photos as not as simple as before. I walked downtown by the seaside and did my last photo in Beirut. I photographed the sea, deep blue and very placid... still there."
O Corpo Neutro
by Filipe dos Santos Barrocas
The author explores the referent’s neutral body in the photographic image and the result of his research is this set of narratives, each one built from the family’s portraits and in dialogue with other authors. He tells in particular the story of a man and a woman. Although they are not a couple. He is her grandfather and she, a child in these images, is now the author’s mother. On the back of one of her pictures he read: “Vimeiro 1968”. It is on the Portuguese west coast. Where the battle with the French took place in the early nineteenth century and, it seems, his family’s vacation destination. An expected and distant place, where cool and salty waters meet and Saturno Island punctuates the horizon. A granitic island situated in the Atlantic Ocean, half a dozen miles from Cabo Carvoeiro. In Vimeiro’s horizont, where the grandfather taught the child to swim. An event which was witnessed by the father’s photographic apparatus and testified today by the pictures in the family’s album.
Day X - Lapse Rate
by Pedro Guimarães & Miguel Clara Vasconcelos
The author explores the referent’s neutral body in the photographic image and the result of his research is this set of narratives, each one built from the family’s portraits and in dialogue with other authors. He tells in particular the story of a man and a woman. Although they are not a couple. He is her grandfather and she, a child in these images, is now the author’s mother. On the back of one of her pictures he read: “Vimeiro 1968”. It is on the Portuguese west coast. Where the battle with the French took place in the early nineteenth century and, it seems, his family’s vacation destination. An expected and distant place, where cool and salty waters meet and Saturno Island punctuates the horizon. A granitic island situated in the Atlantic Ocean, half a dozen miles from Cabo Carvoeiro. In Vimeiro’s horizont, where the grandfather taught the child to swim. An event which was witnessed by the father’s photographic apparatus and testified today by the pictures in the family’s album.
