Emergentes Portfolio Reviews 2023

The Emergentes 2023 Winner and Collective Finalist Exhibitions were curated by Vítor Nieves.

The Emergentes 2023 Winner Exhibition

HOLYDAY

D. M. Terblanche
Curator: Vítor Nieves.

20.09 – 03.11.2024
SOMA — Plataforma Cultural

The Emergentes 2023 Finalists Exhibitions

Not Giving a Hoot

Elisa Mariotti, Francesca Faulin and Katerina Kouzmitcheva.
Curator: Vítor Nieves.

20.09 – 03.11.2024
Biblioteca Lúcio Craveiro da Silva, Braga

This exhibition brings together the works of Elisa Mariotti, Francesca Faulin and Katerina Kouzmitcheva, three of the finalist artists in Emergentes 2023, who, through different approaches, investigate themes that modern society tends to ignore or avoid.
The title of the exhibition, inspired by Kouzmitcheva’s work, refers to an attitude of indifference or detachment towards issues that, although present in everyday life, are often avoided or silenced. This attitude of ‘not giving a hoot’ acts as a metaphor inviting reflection on how we deal – or, more precisely, how we don’t deal – with problems that profoundly affect our society, such as mental illness and drug addiction.

The curatorial decision to bring together these three projects, so different at first glance, is a wake-up call in that it establishes a link between concerns that, although different in their manifestation, share a common denominator: the refusal or avoidance of uncomfortable realities. This dialogue between the works highlights how society often prefers to ignore or avoid confronting issues that challenge its comfort and stability. The ability to look away from the suffering of others is one of the oldest human strategies for avoiding moral discomfort (Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others, 2003). Not giving a hoot forces us to face head-on what we normally evade, exposing the various forms of avoidance that permeate our daily lives and encouraging reflection on these dynamics.

In contemporary society, as described by Zygmunt Bauman in Liquid Modernity (2000), we live in an era marked by fluidity and volatility, where responsibilities and commitments become increasingly undefined. Instead of facing problems collectively, they are often relegated to others or, in many cases, simply ignored. Bauman observes that in this ‘liquid modernity’, relationships, institutions and identities lack stability, reflecting a growing tendency to avoid confrontation with the most challenging and uncomfortable realities of today’s society.

Michel Foucault, in Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison (1975), translated into English as Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, warns us about the way modern societies develop mechanisms of discipline and segregation to deal with those who don’t conform to established norms. Instead of confronting the realities behind deviant behaviour, societies tend to remove these individuals from the public eye, confining them to spaces where their existence is, in fact, made invisible. Foucault argues that this process of disciplinarisation not only marginalises individuals, but also reinforces the power structures that perpetuate these exclusions.

Complementing this perspective, Judith Butler, criticises social norms that impose rigid categories of identity and behaviour, often punishing those who don’t fit these expectations. Butler notes that ‘the regulatory norms that define us also dehumanise us and make it impossible for us to realise our full human potential’ (Undoing Gender,2004), highlighting how society not only avoids dealing with difference, but also exerts symbolic violence on those who dare to challenge the prevailing norms.

The combination of these approaches underlines how exclusionary practices, both in terms of disciplinarisation and the imposition of social norms, remain powerful tools to avoid confronting the realities that disturb us. These strategies of segregation and conformism, rather than promoting a fairer and more inclusive society, perpetuate the marginalisation and silencing of dissenting voices.

Not giving a hoot reveals different dimensions of the detachment that characterises liquid modernity. By exposing uncomfortable realities that are ignored, the exhibition also subverts the power structures that perpetuate marginalisation and silencing. To paraphrase Jacques Rancière, art has the power to reconfigure the space of the visible, bringing to light what society prefers to keep hidden (The Sharing of the Sensible, 2000). Because art can challenge established hierarchies, questioning traditional forms of representation and thus redistributing the sensible in such a way that it gives voice to the silenced.

Choosing to give a hoot

A Letter from Home is the project with which Elisa Mariotti offers us an intimate window into the closed world of therapeutic communities, where drug addiction is addressed through a rigorous rehabilitation and reintegration process. This work, the result of research in the San Patrignano community in Italy, one of the largest and best known in the world, challenges us to confront one of the most ucomfortable and often ignored realities of contemporary society: the vicious cycle of addiction and the continuous effort to overcome it.

Mariotti forces us to face head-on the realities of drug addiction, which so often make us not giving a hoot. By exploring the daily routines, emotional challenges and human relationships within the community, she subverts the typical narrative of marginalisation associated with drug addicts. Instead, it highlights the complexity of a process that requires overcoming physical dependence and rebuilding fragmented identities, often through carefully mediated interactions and a gradual return to a structured life.

Returning to being

Francesca Faulin , with L’originale, l’ombra e la ripetizione (The original, the shadow and the repetition), delves into the shadows of a silenced family history, offering the audience a reflection on the complexity of mental illness and the construction of identity. Inspired by the discovery of her grandfather’s diary, which documented the last years of her uncle’s life Francesco, who suffered from schizophrenia, Faulin explores the delicate line between sanity and psychosis, questioning the boundaries between normality and illness.

Using old photographic techniques, the artist not only revisits memories from the past, but also emphasises the fragmented and repetitive nature of the experience of those living with schizophrenia. The choice of these techniques gives the images an ethereal, almost ghostly quality, which echoes the quote with which the artist begins her work:

‘As the shadow grows, so does the distance between the original and the copy.’ In this work, the shadow – schizophrenia – progressively distances the individual from their original identity, creating multiple layers of existence that overlap and repeat themselves, as if in an endless cycle.

Francesca Faulin, already known for her family projects, invites us in this work to confront the reality of schizophrenia, an often marginalised and misunderstood condition. By revealing this family secret, the artist inverts the silence that often surrounds mental illness, exposing the nuances of an internal struggle that is both individual and collective.

Dimensions of giving a hoot

With My Hut Is On The Edge, Katerina Kouzmitcheva leads us to explore the subtleties of detachment and indifference through an investigation into idioms that subtly reflect attitudes of detachment and disinterest in the world around us. Taking a traditional saying from her native Belarus, which means something like ‘that doesn’t concern me’, Kouzmitcheva reveals how language shapes not only communication, but also behaviour and social responsibility.

In this work, the artist questions the universality of these linguistic patterns of distancing, discovering that in different cultures there are expressions that reflect a desire to avoid confrontation with reality, be it political, social or moral. Through a combination of traditional sayings or popular expressions and fictional scenarios, Kouzmitcheva uses black humour to portray ignorance and apathy, ultimately reflecting liquid modernity towards issues that require an active and conscious stance.

Katerina Kouzmitcheva’s works also play a fundamental role in the conceptual architecture of this exhibition, operating simultaneously as links and separators between the other works exhibited. In this way, they weave a network of meanings that, at the same time as unifying the different thematic approaches, emphasise the distinctions that characterise them, acting as points of intersection, where the discourse of indifference is articulated with the complexity of the themes addressed by the other artists, creating an interpretative cohesion that is as organic as it is provocative.

The Anthropocene: Before, Still and Tomorrow

Ana Rodríguez Heinlein, Luca Rotondo and Martin Tscholl.
Curator: Vítor Nieves.

20.09 – 03.11.2024
Mosteiro de Tibães, Braga

The concept of the Anthropocene, as a geological and historical milestone, challenges us to rethink our relationship with the environment and the landscapes that surround us. The transformations inherent to it have not only physically moulded the Earth, but have also profoundly altered our perceptions of the natural. The landscapes that we now recognise and value as natural are often the result of human interventions accumulated over centuries, becoming silent witnesses to the anthropogenic forces that created and transformed them.

The exhibition ‘From the Anthropocene: before, still and tomorrow’ aims precisely to explore these questions, offering a platform for contemplating and problematising the landscapes of the present and the future. The projects by Ana Rodríguez Heinlein, Luca Rotondo and Martin Tscholl, three of the Emergentes 2023 finalists, address key aspects of the anthropisation of the environment, presenting themselves in a non-linear time that fuses past and future, transversing the concepts of memory and futurity, of human action and technological construction. Environmental degradation and preservation are thus presented as parts of the same continuum, emphasising the inseparable interconnection between these processes.

In this scenario, the idea of preservation takes on an additional complexity. Preserving these landscapes implies not only conserving their appearance or ecosystems, but also reflecting on the narratives they carry, such as those of intervention, destruction, adaptation and survival. As Bruno Latour suggests in his concept of the ‘Critical Zone’, the Anthropocene forces us to recognise that we are immersed in a world where the distinction between the natural and the artificial is increasingly difficult to establish, requiring new ways of thinking and acting (Latour, 2017).

A term introduced by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen (Geology of mankind. Nature, vol. 415) at the turn of the millennium, the Anthropocene refers to a new geological era in which humanity has become an agent of change on a planetary scale, especially since the Industrial Revolution. This new designation, which has generated considerable debate, reflects the profound and far-reaching impact of human activity on the planet, marking an unprecedented break in the Earth’s geological history. However, the Anthropocene is not just a question of nomenclature or time delimitation; it has established itself as a central concept in today’s critical and political discourses, calling us to an urgent reflection on the consequences of our actions on the natural world.

Although the concept of the Anthropocene is still relatively vague, especially in the field of contemporary photography in our context, it has been the subject of numerous investigations and initiatives in various disciplines. Its scope and transversality make it a central theme for rethinking our relationship with the natural and cultural world, and for exploring new ways of understanding and protecting the heritage we will leave to future generations. As Jason W. Moore (2016) notes, the Anthropocene should be seen not just as a new geological era, but as a mirror that reflects the ecological, social and economic crises emerging from the dynamics of global capitalism.

When considered as a landscape, the Anthropocene reveals a multiplicity of realities – both visible and invisible, tangible and intangible – that may be in different states of degradation or preservation. This complexity forces us to re-examine and explore new perspectives on the relationship between place and history, although it seems to be something that has already been exhaustively explored in our medium, especially in what has been conventionally called ‘Territory’ in photography circles, a concept largely emptied of meaning by documentalism (aka. photojournalism disguised as art) that is more concerned with framing than reflection, with an approach that was exhausted a long time ago, even before Crutzen formulated the theory we discuss in this text.

However, the relevance of the Anthropocene concept goes beyond this superficial treatment of ‘Territory’. More than that, it invites us to rethink natural and cultural values, not as separate entities, but as hybrid and interconnected realities that reflect a fusion between the natural and the cultural. The true essence of the Anthropocene lies in the need to re-evaluate our relationship with the past and the future. This challenge has opened the door to a profound debate about what it means today to conserve and protect both heritage and landscapes. This dialogue, of course, is full of complexities, obstacles and contradictions that need to be carefully addressed.

In this scenario, it becomes essential to reflect on the types of landscape that align with concepts such as irreversibility, resilience, hybridisation and the complementarity between human action and nature. It is also crucial to consider what it means to create alternative futures and what visions of the future can help us mitigate or adapt to global crises. In addition, we must consider the narratives and practices that allow us to understand current challenges more deeply. At the same time, we need to explore the space between the philosophy of collapse and the transition to a paradigm that promotes a sustainable future, identifying the signs of new landscapes and the necessary actions, integrating perspectives from different areas of knowledge.

Before

In her work Tierra sin Agua (Land without Water), Ana Rodríguez Heinlein looks into a recent past that unfolds as an urgent warning for the future. Through a visual and conceptual investigation into the drought in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, Heinlein documents a land marked by the absence of water, exposing the vulnerability of a region whose prosperity has always been closely linked to this vital resource. As the artist herself observes, ‘the scarcity of this resource exposes latent conflicts and tests previously unquestioned dependencies’, revealing the cracks in a system that insists on exploiting water as if it were infinite.

Heinlein questions the consequences of historical and contemporary practices that prioritise economic objectives, such as intensive agriculture and tourism, on long-term sustainability. This approach resonates with the thinking of Joan Martínez-Alier, who in her book The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (2002), discusses how marginalised communities are often the most affected by environmental crises resulting from the overexploitation of natural resources.

Heinlein reminds us that the past, with all its unsustainable practices, is not distant; it shapes the present and portends an uncertain future. The artist invites us to reflect on the legacy of these practices, on the irreversibility of the changes that have already taken place, and on the responsibility to re-evaluate our relationship with the environment in order to avoid a collapse that threatens both nature and human life.

Still

Luca Rotondo’s Kirka confronts us with the persistent tension between past and present, exploring the complex relationship between humans and bears in the Alps. After almost a century of ruthless hunting that brought the species to the brink of extinction in the region, the European ‘Life Ursus’ project was implemented in the hope of restoring a viable bear population. However, the return of these animals, an attempt to repair what seemed irreversible, has not only brought about a reintroduction of wildlife, but has also reignited old conflicts between local communities and the bears, which have become symbols of both pride and threat.

Rotondo exposes the layers of contradictions and ambiguities that mark this forced coexistence. While some see the bears as the rebirth of a natural heritage that should be celebrated, others consider them intruders, alien to the territory, as if the human presence had cancelled out any previous right the bears had to that space. The clash between the desire to protect an emblematic species and the need to ensure the safety and interests of local communities exposes the difficult coexistence between conservation and progress.

This work leads us to reflect on our ability to really repair the damage done to the environment. In narrating the efforts and failures over the attempt to reconcile human beings with nature, Rotondo evokes an idea of symbolic reparation, which reminds us of A Paradise Built in Hell (2009), where Rebecca Solnit discusses how acts of correction for past injustices often generate new forms of conflict and resistance. ‘Kirka’ places us at the centre of a moral and ecological dilemma that still persists today, a reminder that coexistence between human beings and nature is an ongoing and uncertain process.

Tomorrow

In ‘Imaginary Ecologies’, Martin Tscholl projects us into a speculative future where nature as we know it is reinvented. Through a collection of images depicting plants, natural objects, animal remains and other elements that we might find in the environment, Tscholl constructs views that transcend the present and challenge us to imagine a world where the boundaries between the natural and the artificial are blurred. These imaginary ecologies are not mere fantasies, but in-depth explorations of the complex and interdependent relationships that exist between all forms of life.

Tscholl invites us to an exercise in active imagination, where the species that populate his work seem both familiar and strange, as if they belonged to a time yet to come. By exploring these interactions and transformations, the artist questions our ability to understand and integrate into a world beyond the human, a world where new forms of coexistence emerge from the current ecological crisis.

Donna Haraway (Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, 2016), discusses the need to ‘stay with the trouble’ and embrace the unknown in order to create possible futures. Just as Haraway suggests an ongoing commitment to building multispecies relationships, Tscholl, through ‘Imaginary Ecologies’, opens up a photographic space for us to imagine and dialogue with a future in which humanity must radically rethink its place in the global ecosystem.

The Open Veins

Aaryan Sinha, Amina Kadous and Olga Sokal.
Curator: Vítor Nieves.

20.09 – 03.11.2024
SOMA — Plataforma Cultural, Braga

The projects by Aaryan Sinha, Amina Kadous and Olga Sokal, finalists in Emergentes 2023, are brought together in this exhibition because they align perfectly with the central theme of this edition of Encontros da Imagem. Based on their personal and family histories, they explore issues that, although deeply rooted in local contexts, resonate with a global dimension. Their works not only reveal the persistence of colonial scars, but also problematise the dynamics of extractivism and neo-developmentalism, which continue to perpetuate inequalities and the exploitation of resources, both human and natural, in the name of progress.

From the outset, the colonial process had as its central objective the extraction of wealth from the territories discovered by the white man. This exhibition brings to light the legacy left by centuries of exploitation: a system of forced labour and the social, economic and political reorganisation of the occupied regions. All to ensure the plundering of resources. If these rich resources once financed the wars of European monarchies or contributed to the primary accumulation of emerging capitalism, today they continue to play a similar role, fuelling oligarchies and a consolidated and widely experienced global economic system.

But colonial extractivism was not limited to a single territory or period. As Eduardo Galeano recalls in his masterly work The Open Veins of Latin America (1971) – from which this exhibition borrows its title – throughout the 500 years that followed the initial occupation, the monoculture of sugar cane, cotton and wool, among others, served as fuel for capitalist expansion in Europe; as did the exploitation of rubber in the Amazon and, later, the extraction of oil and gas throughout the continent.

From the time of colonisation to the present day, the economic position of the countries that were occupied has remained essentially unchanged: they continue to be primary sources of natural resources that feed the economic power of global elites and sustain the economic system that these elites developed, capitalism. Today, extractivism – understood as the intensive exploitation of natural resources, traded on the international market without any added value – remains central to many national economies, contributing significantly to state revenues. This phenomenon, which fits in with the theories of ‘neo-developmentalism’ discussed by authors such as Eduardo Gudynas and Maristella Svampa, shows how, even in countries that have sought to implement more equitable public policies since the 2000s (such as Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia), overcoming the primary-export model has proved to be an arduous, if not impossible, task. In these contexts, similar conflicts continue to emerge, driven by the social and environmental consequences that extractivism invariably causes.

In addition, the economic structures put in place during colonisation remain largely intact. Aníbal Quijano coined the term ‘coloniality’ to describe the power relations that perpetuate the social, economic and political patterns inherited from European colonisation, based on three fundamental pillars: Eurocentrism, capitalism and racism. Thus, even in a post-colonial world, these dynamics continue to mould contemporary societies, perpetuating the inequalities and conflicts associated with extractivism.

The colonial agenda, however, is not only manifested through the power dynamics between colonising Europe and the colonised countries. The sophisticated oppressive techniques of neo-developmentalism also expand this agenda within nations themselves, and even in local contexts, perpetuating the same logics of exploitation and inequality. This phenomenon, described by Aymara-Bolivian sociologist Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui as ‘internal recolonisation’, applies especially to the implementation and expansion of extractive projects. Since the 1980s, accompanying the rise of neoliberalism at international level, we have seen the growth of extractivism, which can be analysed through the concepts of coloniality and internal recolonisation. This model not only reproduces Eurocentrism, capitalist logics and racism, but also creates new forms of oppression within the countries themselves.

An example of this in Portugal is the projection of lithium mines in regions far from the centres of power, which shows how these dynamics of exploitation also take place in local contexts. This phenomenon was addressed by Silvy Crespo in her exhibition ‘The Land of Elephants’, presented at the Castelo Building during Encontros da Imagem 2021. Crespo highlighted how these areas, often far from major cities and decision-making centres, are chosen for resource extraction, perpetuating a kind of internal colonialism that is reflected in regional disparities and the marginalisation of local populations.

In this context, the works of Aaryan Sinha, Amina Kadous and Olga Sokal emerge as critical voices which, based on their personal and family stories, invite us to reflect on the continuities and ruptures of these dynamics of power and exploitation, both on a global and local scale.

Divide and you shall conquer

Aaryan Sinha’s work, This Isn’t Divide and Conquer, is positioned within post-colonial thought, exploring one of the most persistent and painful conflicts in the contemporary history of India and Pakistan. The project emerges from Sinha’s family roots, developing over the course of a journey through the five Indian states bordering Pakistan. Through photography, the author seeks to understand how historical events, particularly the Partition of 1947, have shaped the ever-changing landscape and identity of the Indian people.

The Radcliffe Line, drawn in just five days by a British officer, Cyril Radcliffe, without any consideration for the complex cultural, ethnic and regional realities, divided India and Pakistan abruptly and arbitrarily. This hasty demarcation gave rise to one of the largest forced migrations in history, displacing 14 million people and resulting in the deaths of more than a million. This imaginary line not only separated geographies, but ripped apart the social, cultural and family tissue, wounds which remain open until today.

The title of Sinha’s work refers to the British colonial strategy of ‘divide and conquer’, which fostered religious divisions to weaken resistance to imperial rule. However, Sinha goes beyond a mere historical denunciation, suggesting that these divisive tactics are far from being relegated to the past. The current right-wing government in India, by polarising religious communities, disturbingly revives the same power dynamics, exacerbating social fragmentation and consolidating its control over a vast nation.

This Isn’t Divide and Conquer is a critical reflection on the continuity of colonial legacies in contemporary politics. By revisiting history through her family’s memories and personal experiences, Sinha challenges the official narrative and invites introspection and dialogue, recalling the wounds of the past but also illuminating current tensions, promoting a message of unity in times of deep political division.

By focusing on similarities rather than differences, this project offers a powerful counter-narrative to the prevailing polarisation, proposing a space for reflection where individual and collective stories intertwine in the hope of a more reconciled future less marked by the scars of the past.

Classic heritage brought up to date

Amina Kadous’ work, White Gold, wanders at the intersection between personal stories and the vast web of economic and political dynamics that have shaped and continue to shape Egypt. Egyptian cotton, often referred to as ‘white gold’, symbolises the country’s natural wealth, but also the complex power relations that surround it. During the colonial period, extractivism was imposed as a tool of domination and exploitation, and after independence, this logic of control did not disappear; rather, it was appropriated and perpetuated by national oligarchs, who came to respond to the interests of a globalised capitalism.

White Gold is a critical investigation into how the legacy of colonialism continues to manifest itself in contemporary geopolitics and in people’s daily lives. Geo-economic policy is not confined to decisions made in distant spheres; it is embedded in family histories, in the memories that pass from generation to generation and in the collective traumas that remain alive in the social tissue.

Kadous uses the history of cotton as a metaphor to explore Egyptian identity, both on a personal and collective level. His family’s story, rooted in the textile industry of El Mehalla Al Kobra, reflects the transformations that Egypt has undergone over time. The town, once one of the most important in cotton harvesting and spinning, is a microcosm of the country’s economic and social changes. Through his great-grandfather, who founded a textile factory in 1969, to his father, who continued this legacy in the 1980s, Kadous constructs a narrative that intertwines his own identity with contemporary Egyptian history.

Cotton, like Kadous herself, has been ripped from its roots, processed, transformed and inserted into a global dynamic that often ignores the human and cultural implications of this extraction. In White Gold, the artist questions what remains of this ‘human seed’, reflecting on what has been lost, what still remains and what could have been. Through a combination of family archives, found objects and personal memories, she weaves a portrait of the resilience and struggle of the Egyptian people, and of her own struggle to find a place in an ever-changing world.

This work, at once intimate and collective, challenges us to reconsider post-colonial narratives and recognise how practices of exploitation and control, often disguised as development, continue to influence and define identities in local and global contexts.

Internal recolonisation

Olga Sokal’s Black Stone Burns is an investigation into post-colonial dynamics in a local context that reflects the impact of coal mining on communities around the world. This work, which starts from the artist’s family history and home village in Belchatow, Poland, covers five countries on three continents, revealing how coal mining, far from being a practice relegated to the past, continues to be a driving force of global capitalism, with devastating consequences for people and the environment.

Sokal’s work is part of the aforementioned ‘internal recolonisation’ (Rivera Cusicanqui, 2010), a form of domination that is not limited to former colonies, but also manifests itself within nation states themselves. In Belchatow, where the coal mines have run through the history of his family and neighbourhood, this dynamic of internal recolonisation is evident. Coal mining, initially a source of livelihood and pride, has become a symbol of environmental and social degradation, leaving deep scars on the land and the community. When the black stones are extracted and the hard work is taken away, what remains is more than devastated land; it is fragmented communities and emptied identities.

Sokal weaves complex visual narratives that reveal how coal mining indelibly moulded the lives of the people who depended on it. Black Stone Burns questions the policies that sustain and promote the continuation of extractivism. In the UK, archive adverts celebrating the coal era are confronted with strategies to whitewash its history, highlighting how capitalism uses visual communication to perpetuate its hegemony. In the Appalachian mining towns of the United States, Sokal captures the disillusionment of communities that, once sustained by the ‘American dream’ of coal, now face economic and social collapse. In China, large-scale exploitation leads to environmental degradation of alarming proportions, exemplifying how neoliberalism and global capitalism continue to exploit and mercantilise the natural world.

By interrogating the relationship between these forces and the role that photography plays in their construction and perpetuation, the author questions the continuity of exploitative practices and the ways in which they shape the global economy and the personal and collective histories of affected communities. Through Sokal’s lens, coal ceases to be just a ‘black stone’ and becomes a symbol of the ongoing struggle against the power dynamics that persist in the post-colonial era.