DicionáriosDeArtista

DicionáriosDeArtista:Alentejo / ArtistDictionaries:Alentejo

(2017-2019)

21 drawings

Felt pens and gel on a notebook.
148 x 210 cm (closed),
297 x 210 cm (open).
Single copy.
2017–2019

The DicionáriosDeArtista (ArtistDictionaries) project started in 2010 and consists of a set of artists books, produced in Mozambique, Portugal, China and Norway. The main objective is to create a compilation of graphic reflections on my relationship with places and its local culture.

It’s site-specific, involves fieldwork and mixes drawing with hints of autoethnography. Using memory, self-reflection and imagination, I take a personal and self-referential investigation into certain aspects of contemporary culture and society.

The specificities of the place are observed and lived but also viewed as an object for reflexive inquiry.

More generally, I pursue the idea of “experiencing myself” living in different geographic areas of the world to research on differences, contrasts and cultural similarities.

The drawings presented in DicionáriosDeArtista are dynamic and complex, like the realities they convey. They represent much more than what one can superficially see. Their meaning is unstable and unclear like life itself.

This work is the starting point of my art-based research focuses on the appropriation of autoethnographic processes in contemporary drawing.

DicionáriosDeArtista:Alentejo was created in Portugal and Norway between April 2017 and June 2019.

The work explores two dimensions of the same place: Aljustrel, the village where I grew up and with which I have a residual connection, and Alentejo, a vast national territory that I perceive in a specific way, related to my roots and cultural experience. The artist’s book was the latest work of the DicionáriosDeArtista project and assumed as conclusive.

By reexamining past experiences to question the present and the future, I reflect deeply on my identity, accepting its benign instability.