Shortlisted for the Novo Banco Revelation Award 2016
The NOVO BANCO REVELATION award is an initiative of the NOVO BANCO in partnership with the Serralves Foundation that has already distinguished 39 artists. It aims to encourage artistic creation and production by talented young Portuguese artists, based on a logic of dissemination, launch and support of all artists who use photography as an artistic medium.
The renewed format of the NOVO BANCO Revelation award includes an international jury. In the first stage it is responsible for selecting four projects from all the applications received. In the second stage the jury will choose the competition’s main winner from the four shortlisted projects.
Esposende, a city of around 34000 inhabitants located on the northern coast of Portugal, is my circunstancial subject.
Around the 1970’s, three towers began their construction on the city’s shore. Due to the rising sea level, several preventive measures have been taken. Spurs constructed on both sides of the towers, conceived to lessen the tides, turn out to have dramatic consequences of their own.
Several times the demolition of the towers have been issued by local and national authorities, so far none has taken place. Ofir, on the southern bank of river Cávado, in between fresh and saltwater, has suffered dramatic changes. The sandbank ensures the fragile river ecosystem does not cease to exist and prevents flooding. This peninsula has been under constant reinforcement operations for the last decade. From north to south, the sea replaces the sand with stones and pebbles.
Weekly I would go to the beach. Photographing still lifes and people living still - observing still - much like myself. Most looking from afar, others closely. Some starting to look just when others cease to. Each view, a slightly different version of reality. To each, its own bias. A studio like any other, where, through juxtaposition, one can compose, hoaxes on scale, impact or time. Imagining not picturing.
To understand representation, not the world itself.
On one occasion, Portugal’s president Anibal Cavaco Silva, attended the opening ceremony of an initiative under the seafront requalification effort,
on a village north of Esposende.
After the demolition of 27 buildings under threat, a concrete amphitheatre facing the shore takes their place. This symbolic location is known for its annual holy bath. Mainly children, but adults alike, dip into the cold waters to clear away fear, epilepsy or speech impediments.
I frame the president from the edge, as he swiftly moves along. Followed by, pointed by - observed from all sides. He waves. I am photographed as well.
Man leaps to look closer. I take six shots of his quick path.
All is calm, after a while.
I often observe the daily pilgrimage to the shore. At the end of the spur, many seek to be closer to the sun melting through the ocean.
Becoming surrounded by it from all sides.
Watching reality become opaque.
Otherworldly politics. Softly lit. Playfully colored.
Experiencing brief abstractions on reality.