A gARDEN AT NIGHT
RAMPA, porto 2020
© Photo credits: Tiago Madaleno e RAMPA
Weeds (2019-2020)
Installation view: photoluminescent paint on walls and floor, all texts were written in english, variable dimensions
Red Shoes (2019-2020),
Sound piece (25’, four channels), synchronized with video and lightning device
Silhouette of a Stranger (2020),
Installation view: video projection (25’, Full HD, color, loop)
The point of departure for A Garden at Night is the garden that belonged to the German artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) when he was still a child and the traumatic event that it is connected with it. When seeing its garden being destroyed Schwitters had an epileptic seizure and loses control. That crisis will lead him to bedridden for about two years, and in that period he started painting and drawing for the first time.
Through the appropriation and recontextualization of narratives from Schwitters’ universe, this project speculates around the paradoxes inherent to that garden: how to represent a garden that is not dominated by the authority of human gestures, but rather embracing vertigo or trauma? How can a garden embody an idea of fragility, in which the hand of the gardener is weakened? If a geometric garden generates a choreographed body, can a garden being destroyed find its reflection in a spasmodic body, unable to act rationally?
In the form of an installation, A Garden at Night considers the garden as an in-between space: bordering temporal experiences, splitting body from movement, separating memory from event, between trace and performance.
A Garden at Night was produced with the support of Criatório 2019, a grant for artistic creation awarded by the Porto City Council, and in collaboration with RAMPA.
Exhibition text: Weedy Dance by José Costa
