Mindscape
In the summer of 2022, I spent two months at the Buinho residency 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.
For my first exhibiton at Buinho, I created a photo collage of Messejana that transformed familiar vistas into a subtly surreal landscape. The photo collage rearranges familiar vistas of the village. 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.
Audio for the first iteration of the installation installation was compiled by fellow resident Quin Martins, who recorded a typical day in the village.
Mindscape was part of Olhando Mais De Perto, a group exhibition by Buinho residents Kasia Dzikowska, Gretchen Hasse, and Quin Martins.
