Deconstructing and reconstructing what I record is an important part of my work. Original photographs are the basis for new series. Each project has its own conceptual approach and the images become layers of the formal construction and final meaning. The result can become more or less realistic, play with time sequences, create three-dimensional shapes and use multiple simultaneous points of view.
When I start a project, inspiration can come from different sources. The work for Usina de Arte came from living, since my childhood, with tiles as a strong expression of art. In my house, right at the entrance, there was a wall with modernist tiles. And every time I traveled to the Northeast I visited relatives' houses, churches and squares where I saw tiles of all types. I've always been fascinated by seeing symbols, drawings and stories in this format.
As photography currently includes prints on various supports, tiles are one of the media that I have been exploring in several series, in an appropriation of the ancient art of Portuguese tiles. This art has so influenced Brazilian culture from the colonial period, through the Baroque, to modernity.
It was by continuing this visual research with tiles that “Conversadeiras” was born, a project in which I propose encounters between contemporary expressions and traditional support. I received an invitation from curator Marc Pottier to join the Usina de Arte collection as a rich challenge. I then started with the desire to continue using tiles as a support and proposed an occupation that is, at the same time, conceptual and utilitarian, by building sculptural benches covered in printed tiles.
The work is made up of a body of images that range from references to local popular art, to historical images, maps and photographs, images of sugar cane culture, composing a visual narrative of the history of the Usina region and the city of Recife. In this way, “Conversadeiras” is constituted as a fusion of material, semantic and historical layers.
The benches were designed to integrate the landscape of Usina de Arte, creating squares. This furniture serves as spaces for rest and contemplation of the landscape. At the same time, they illustrate stories and dialogues with the Usina itself, in its context and historical symbolism.
– Claudia Jaguaribe
