Interferências

by Jorge Perez, Lise Kerdraon, Lucas Juszczak, Mickaël dos Santos, Saule Grybenaite

The characteristic of the botanical garden that we consider important is the ephemerality. A garden is the place of change and evolution, meaning not only the passage of people but also the passage of time which puts it in a constant state of transit and impermanence.

Virgilio Ferreira plays with these concepts in his work. He creates superposition of ephemeral moments to explore spaces suspended between different instances. Using the contrast of static and dynamic states he creates new possibilities and makes us experience the alternated reality, the hidden dimension. We got inspired in his methodology because it allowed us to investigate the botanical garden differently, embracing its diverse and transcendental nature.
Our intention for this project is to discover the invisible or the unseen. Capturing the non-evident, showing the hidden reality through the superposition of images and filters we aim to reveal the space in-between, what is there but happens to be unnoticed. That unperceived image and unlived experience is the most ephemeral there is. We want to approach the nature and the surroundings in a counterintuitive way, directing attention toward seemingly insignificant, marginal details or events, which we in our continuous experience of the world tend to overlook or ignore. With a fine sensibility we hope to register these impressions and allow them to come to life.

We want to show ephemerality on both: formal and metaphoric levels. By formal we refer to the use of the green net protecting construction area — a temporally existing artifact — as a filter. By metaphoric, to that space in-between, that third dimension created merging the image and the filter which at first might seem inexistent. We intent to offer this experience in time as sort of optical being which has to be accepted as a space itself before you can step into it.
Our ideas recall the projects of Christo and Jeanne-Claude who were covering and packing human constructions and landscapes. This way they questioned form and function of surroundings and by covering they were actually revealing the essence of the hidden. Their work also criticized the act of construction, in the sense that the energy spent to create these ephemeral results was substantial and could have been considered as unnecessary. It is a reflection on man’s impact on the environment. How we cover, we hide, we reveal, we build, we destroy. The process of packing a space, allows to create a new identity, a new form, a new aesthetic or a new practice of it.
As an ephemeral matrix, the green net creates a border between permanent and impermanent, between real vision and filtered one, between accessible and non-accessible. The net as a result of a changing and ephemeral process is a filter that we consider interesting to explore, as it limits and covers the site making us question what is hidden behind. By photographing through it, we reveal its pictographic power and the new aesthetic and mystic qualities that it gives to the images.

The ephemerality and the illusion both mark openness, which encourages the spectator to sense, experience and reflectively take part in the events and themes. We want to offer that situation where at the same time you know and forget that photographies are illusions. You may enter their world and use it as a ground for your own projections and experiences.

CFM 2014/2015