Artist
Rui Paulo Lourenço Costa
Rui Costa, Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal, 1989.
He began his studies at the Portuguese Institute of Photography in Lisbon in 2020, wherehe became interested in developing documentary and authorial projects. In 2022 heattended the Masterclass Narrativa with the photographer Mário Cruz. Since 2023, he hasbeen a teacher at the Portuguese Institute of Photography in Lisbon. Winner of the Fnac New Talents Award 2023, in the Photography category, with the essay“Uma Azeitona Bordada em Azul".
UMA AZEITONA BORDADA EM AZUL
Vulnerable, this need for impermanence that was manifested, inexplicable, in a second of apnea close to the definitive, endless. The opportunity that arose and that I document, between uncertainties of an imagined truth and the familiar fragility that takes away my discernment. I tried to return to that place, emotionally, to try to understand you, irrationally, even knowing that in the skin you inhabit, there are more lines and fewer words, than those contained on this page. And without questioning your choice, I try to understand what I don't feel. This essay comes after my grandmother's suicide attempt, in early 2022. An abrupt event, synonymous with rupture and restlessness. A limit that was reached, saturated and dense. A path that was drawn, starting again and learning from what we are. I then return to her safe place, to find her again available as always, to listen to her with the time I never had, to dedicate to her every day that does not repeat itself. I sit down and listen to the stories she has to tell, some I know by heart from hearing them so often, others are as new as the pomegranates on the table, but all of them are old as the colour she is wearing. The days go by and the minutes are hers, I observe her presence in the garden that now grows, we walk in the late afternoon without fear that the sun will hide. I learn with the resilience that every day surprises, motivates and makes me believe that all this makes sense. I grow with the presence that always supported me even before I met myself and I repay it with my being, in that slow living. I now realize how the purpose in which we use photography can originate an extremely positive impact on someone's life. That a photographic essay is an exchange of experiences, a manifestation of respect and trust, a need to understand and an attempt to see the world through another person's eyes. This is my representation of gratitude and if photography is memory perhaps time is the tribute. In the presence of the dimness, I contemplate the space that the land occupies;
Teresa Freitas' work explores the potentiality of colour in photography influenced by painting and cinematic language. For FUTURES, she presents two long-term projects. The first, The Flower Chronicles: Rosa damascena, was developed in small communities around the world who work with traditions based on flower production. In this series, Freitas’ images depict the historical, cultural and socioeconomic dimensions of this activity, while the second project, Cinematica, is a work-in-progress that documents subjects around the world, focusing on the visual impact of colour in composition.
Rui Costa's work explores the poetic and subjective dimension of documentary photography. The project UMA AZEITONA BORDADA EM AZUL is an emotional manifestation about his grandmother, where signs of rupture and restlessness are the matrix of a dense photographic narrative. By interconnecting images from different sources – captured directly by the artist and taken from family albums – Costa creates multiple meanings.
Maria Beatriz de Vilhena's practice examines human nature through systems of belief and collective identity. Her portfolio includes three different bodies of work: Irene is an ongoing project that probes the emotional side of memory through personal photographs and family archives; OMNIS, generated as a collective collaboration, depicts a young religious community during World Youth Day in Lisbon; and Fractal represents the diverse practices of faith and worship present in religious communities in Lisbon.
Katya Bogachevskaia embraces photography as a therapeutic process, expressing her feelings about Russia's invasion of Ukraine while also questioning her own identity. Through the rituals of her daily life, Bogachevskaia documents her emotional state, probing themes of war, emigration, a loss of home, the uncertainty of the future, guilt and death.
João Ramilo's work metaphorically appraises different socio- and economic perspectives around his own village, Louriceira, in the Portugal interior. His ongoing project From rock to bone is an ontological reflection based on his concerns about the disappearance, resignation and preservation of place.