Mindscape
In the summer of 2022, I spent two months in Messejana, a small town in the Portuguese interior. During my time there, I created work that acknowledged my outsider status, and re-examined quotidian elements of the community through that outsider lens.
When I visit a new place, I take countless photographs. I look for interesting angles, unique architecture, anything that creates a mood different from what I’m accustomed to in my own home. In Portugal I was mesmerized by the unfamiliar shapes and light patterns everywhere around me. I created a photo collage of Messejana that transforms familiar vistas into a subtly surreal landscape. The audio was compiled by fellow resident Quin Martins, who recorded sounds from a typical day in the village.
Mindscape rearranges familiar vistas in Messejana. Everything is not quite as it should be: the front door of the local museum now leads to someone’s house, the horizon behind the bar has never included those particular buildings. Messejana residents said the photo collage was both comforting and unsettling, and it spurred a lot of conversation as people gradually recognized how things were out-of-place.