The Sea Closes at Four
Anikó Antalfi
“Memory is imagined; it is not real. Don’t be ashamed of its need to create; it is the loveliest part of your heart. Myth is the true history. Don’t let them tell you that there are no monsters. Don’t let them make you feel stupid, just because you are happy to play down in the dark with your flashlight. The mystical world depends on you and your tolerance for the absurd. Be strong, my darling ones, and believe!”
Nick Cave, The Sick Bag Song
I am a European and I am a migrant. I didn’t just move to a different country, but to another continent. All of us coming from different countries are in search of something inexplicable, secretive, and elusive. Migration deals with economic indicators, political or personal stories and many other factors, while I picture the irrational, the absurd, and the illusion or possibility of personal freedom that this phenomenon gives.
The country I chose is oneiric and looks more like a tale than a real cartographic place. “The Sea Closes at Four” is a nonlinear visual tale on displacement, the perception of the "New World” and imagination.
My work draws inspiration from the Latin American literary tradition, from magical realism, where magical aspects are inherent part of reality. As writers do not create new worlds, but work with the real one and integrate magical elements as part of reality, I construct images from the scenes of real life events and use them as a stage. I am the director, the actor and the viewer.Through these different roles, the work gives me the opportunity to play with reality and fiction.
Images are like symbolic acts, orientating me in absurdity. The need to control the unknown led me to stage everything, so I can have control at least “inside the frame” as a counterbalance of uncertainty.
location
→ Mosteiro de Tibães (Braga)
schedule
→ Tuesday to Sunday and Public Holidays: 10 am / 6 pm
ANIKÓ ANTALFI
The Sea Closes at Four
Anikó Antalfi is a Hungarian photographer based in Mexico City. She studied Theology and Literature at Babes-Bolyai University in Transylvania and graduated in Philosophy and Communication at Babes-Bolyai University. Later continued her studies in Art in Hungary and got a master’s degree in Photography at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest. Currently she lives in Mexico.
In her artistic practice, she is focusing on themes such as intimacy, representations of the self, boundaries of private and public and transitional states of life. Her work combine constructed images, performative elements and documentary techniques, where pictures are depiction of imagination and the camera is a tool of poetry.
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