"The vision of an arapuca, (ara'puka in tupi-guarani), a musical trap of indigenous origin, intended to hunt birds, anticipates multiple analogies and dead ends of life in which the artist invites us to a poetic and existential stroll. In a kind of spiral in the intersections of the mind, awakened by the magic of the camera, Fernanda invites us to a game, but it is in silence that we find ourselves facing the dilemma: Will we be hunted or hunters? - Between the gaze that desires and that which is desired, the artist takes a place of ambivalence where she is sometimes the character projected in the work, or the observer".
Extract from the curatorial text by Ângela Berlinde.
Arapuca, 2020, fabric print, 110 x 140 cm
TEST TO MOVE TO THE BEGINNING
Artistic residency made between 2019 and 2020
in nurseries Pauline Kergomard
et Lounès Matoub in Montreuil City.
in nurseries Pauline Kergomard
et Lounès Matoub in Montreuil City.
The essential thing in this project was to confront my artist’s gaze, to the children’s gaze in the nursery. I wanted to try a return, a kind of reconnection with that primitive state of existence, so dear to Manoel de Barros, the Brazilian poet who guided me on this adventure. For him, childhood is not just a phase of life, but a feeling that he nurtures, and that makes his poetry fertile.
So I decided to work with the children's universe. I photographed various toys and the children's little hands as they played. As I produced the images, I installed them in the space and on the walls of the nursery.
“Everything I had learned until I was 90 years old was nothing; my knowledge was sensorial. What I learned in books afterwards didn't add wisdom, it added information. What I know and what I use for poetry comes from my childhood perceptions.”, Manoel de Barros.
Barros' perceptions are linked to the Pantanal, a region of great animal and natural wealth. My own childhood memories are of the countryside. A huge garden, full of flowers and plants. They were my friends, we spent a lot of time together. Children's toys in nurseries are also their friends. And they certainly hold mysteries. Just like a tree branch or an abandoned little stone.
To advance, in the photographic studio, I looked at these toys, not as such, but as objects that I didn’t know, to be discovered, or to extract something from them. Perhaps with a childlike air, like someone who seeks enchantment in every gesture, or is enchanted by every gesture. Then, to get to the beginning, in nature, I turn to staging. Familiar, the scenery was there. I just put my stuff.
“I hear my river: it's a water snake walking inside my eye”, Manoel de Barros, Compendium for the use of birds, 1960.
Frog or stone, 2020,
nine photographs, inkjet print on fine art mat paper, 20 x 30 cm each, two wooden cases covered with five photographs inkjet print on fine art mat paper with soundtrack on the inside
Work resulting from the artistic residency carried out with the Tignous Center in two montreuilloise nurseries
Before we used to say: pretend that
this frog is stone.
And the frog was.
Manoel de Barros, The maker of dawn, 2001
Little
trip to the bottom of the garden,
sound photo installation, 2020
fourteen photographs, inkjet printing on fine matte art paper laminated on aluminum,
various formats accompanied by six sound recordings
Work resulting from the artistic residency carried out with the Tignous Center in two montreuilloise nurseries.
sound photo installation, 2020
fourteen photographs, inkjet printing on fine matte art paper laminated on aluminum,
various formats accompanied by six sound recordings
Work resulting from the artistic residency carried out with the Tignous Center in two montreuilloise nurseries.
To be like things without mouths!
Communicating only by infusion
by adhesions
by incrustations...
Be a beast, kids,
dried leaves.
Manoel de Barros, Being a new Jó, Compendium for the use of birds, 1960
In front and beyond,
set of five photographs, inkjet printing on matte fine art paper,
90 x 195 cm each, 90 x 450 cm overall