A leaf in the pocket* takes the ivy as the central element to reflect upon idealizations and lost landscapes, obsessions and desires for escapism. It goes back to the universe of the German artist Kurt Schwitters (1887 – 1948), who had already been a reference and a fictional character in the project A Garden at Night (2019 - 2020) to find a motto for a new chapter. This time, the starting point is an episode of Schwitters on the Hutchinson Camp, on the Isle of Man: while he was waiting to be released he would find evasion through his memories of Norwegian landscapes.

 

A leaf in a pocket was an answer to an invitation from Serralves Contemporary Art Museum to design a mural for Estabelecimento Prisional de Porto [Porto Prison Facility] (Custóias), in Matosinhos, as part of the project Windows to the world organized by their Educational Service. 

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* There is a tradition in the Anglo-Saxon folklore in which an ivy leaf is used as a talisman, a symbol that seals a commitment through a kind of a game: a boy or a girl puts a leaf inside their own pocket (or next to the chest, according to some variants) and sings a song that states that the next person who talks to them will become their husband/wife. A love guessing game, which actually signals the projection of a desire.