Activating the CONVERSATION- May at Pada Studios

The second part of my residency took the flavour of a moving conversation with space and materials. When I was accustomed to the space, its surroundings and activated/interacted with the materials over time, a consolidation appeared. I was actively searching for a fluid open structure, the connection to the space became more prominent as well and the interconnection between multiple materials. My body movements became an entire part of the work, and my agency travelled from intending to listening and responding for a common choreography to take place. The interconnection in space became more articulated.

I also started using digital film as a composition medium and activating natural elements such water that have a much less controllable and more independent agency. It seems important for the work to be active in my absence, with natural elements, moving documentation and contingencies. My role shifted in month two as a catalyst and conductor of this moving ecosystem, between consolidation and improvisation.

Getting accustomed - April at Pada studios in Barreiro, Portugal

Here are some extracts of the first month of my residency at Pada studios in April 2025.

I have explored over two months interactions between body, space, time and materials in search for language. It was a durational experimental and performative process work.

Over two months, I have worked with site specific materials, found objects, paper, ink, tape, photography, video and pre-made impacts in the space. I moved my drawing practice in new fields and used documentation as on-going feeding material, exploring the construction of /engagement with an evolutive ecosystem. What is important for me in such a project is the idea of active space, body, time and materials, the notion of duration, the attunement to inner-rhythms and the permeability to what surrounds. 

Pada studios are situated in an old Jute factory in the middle of post-industrial park.

One of the thought-starters was making through unmaking.

Residency in Barreiro: the Industrial Park

For the past month, I have been living and working in Barreiro , at the Pada Studios International residency, situated in a post-industrial park. I started a project aiming to explore over two months the dynamics of my interactions with the place and its materials. Here is some context: the park. It is a vast “dystopian” landscape where remains the colours of past chemicals activities, the ruins of brutalist architectures, the resistance of native flaura and fauna amongst new introduced invasives species. I was surprised by the appealing aesthetic qualities of such landscape, an intriguing beauty of resilience in despair, of life against all odds. In Barreiro, left over materials and teared-down buildings are visual poems of defiance of time. Within this park, beats the heart of a recycling factory, transforming electrical cords into, if possible, re-usable particles of materials.