№040 09012024
Carlos Barradas
Photographer with a PhD in anthropology, I have been producin photographic and textual essays on issues such as territory, colonialism and post-colonialism, disability, new masculinities and sustainability.
Part of my artistic practice is developed around personal work, but also the development of free workshops for the communities I work with, always resulting in fanzines, collective exhibitions or other types of artistic products, as has happened in my work in Campanhã, in Porto, São Tomé and Príncipe or Namibia. I believe that through these joint initiatives and community participation, the visual production and local cultural mapping will be richer the greater their engagement.
Part of my artistic practice is developed around personal work, but also the development of free workshops for the communities I work with, always resulting in fanzines, collective exhibitions or other types of artistic products, as has happened in my work in Campanhã, in Porto, São Tomé and Príncipe or Namibia. I believe that through these joint initiatives and community participation, the visual production and local cultural mapping will be richer the greater their engagement.
‘Ferry Tales’ brings us a reality mired by solitude and immensity. It is a latency period, where the fleeting instant meets the eternal moment. It is where the trivial acquires an exceptional quality. It focuses on the liminality of the ferryboat as a space in a permanent state of transition. Through the metaphorical backdrop of a ferry journey, this work aims to capture the brief, transient experiences that resonate on a deeper, more
timeless level, as if they were a microcosm of life itself. The act of crossing water on a ferryboat becomes a canvas for exploring broader themes of existence and human emotion.
The ferryboat is space circulating, starting and stopping, floating and buoying. This series thus explores the departure, journey, and arrival of a myriad of ferry crossings, and the ship as heterotopia par excellence. In the words of Michel Foucault, ‘in civilizations without boats dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventures, and the police that of the pirates’ In this sense, the ferry becomes a floating piece of Terra Incognita, a place of both liberation and confinement, a space that has more layers of meaning or relationships to other places than immediately meets the eye, where the usual rules of society do not apply in the same way. It is, therefore, a place prone to discovery, to the stimulus of human imagination, to be more about discover and less about control, order, and surveillance.
timeless level, as if they were a microcosm of life itself. The act of crossing water on a ferryboat becomes a canvas for exploring broader themes of existence and human emotion.
The ferryboat is space circulating, starting and stopping, floating and buoying. This series thus explores the departure, journey, and arrival of a myriad of ferry crossings, and the ship as heterotopia par excellence. In the words of Michel Foucault, ‘in civilizations without boats dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventures, and the police that of the pirates’ In this sense, the ferry becomes a floating piece of Terra Incognita, a place of both liberation and confinement, a space that has more layers of meaning or relationships to other places than immediately meets the eye, where the usual rules of society do not apply in the same way. It is, therefore, a place prone to discovery, to the stimulus of human imagination, to be more about discover and less about control, order, and surveillance.
