PATRICIA OLIVEIRA – Somos Sasifo (We are Sisyphus)
This project refers to the myth of Sisyphus, an allusion to the daily routine, to the Individual’s effort in climbing up the metaphorical mountain, which is represented in this work by ladder.
While the sound of the hornpipe sets the rhythm, the slow rhythm of time, Patrícia Oliveira repeatedly fills up the pork entrails with clay, placing them progressively up the ladder, in a fragile structuring balance, as praying mode. Yet, these entrails gradually shape up and gain stability.
Conceptually, this work addresses the issues of cycle and repetition, as well as the attempt to materialize the emptiness, as a praise to the Individual who does not give up.
Credits
Sound: Tânia Pires; Photography: Marcos Guilherme
Copyright Patrícia Oliveira
Press Release
Patrícia Oliveira was born in Oporto in 1983, and studied at Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto. For the last three years, she has been developing several Performance projects. Among the most recent ones, we would highlight: Auto-Pré-Luto 2008), Contentor dos Afectos (2009) and 1909-2009, performed at Casa Escola dos Bombeiros Voluntários de Valença.
All these performances encompass the social as a constitutive element, except Auto-Pré-Luto, which was closed, individual in scope, and imbued with a magical-mythical symbolism.
Her work refers to a kind of return to Joseph Beuys’ concept of “social sculpture”. In other words, this concept encompasses actions which involve a large number of participants from all sociocultural strata, who often have no aesthetic sensibility. Beuys came to this anthropological notion of art trough the intention of filling the space between two types of solitude: the solitude of the art which exists confined to its niche, isolated from society, and the solitude of the individual tied in its own routines.
This seems to be the main purpose of Patrícia Oliveira’s performances, whose genealogy can be found in the sociological art projects performed during the Third International Art Meetings in Portugal, Póvoa de Varzim. During these meetings, Fred Forest promoted an inquiry/debate/performance about the parallel between the lives of firemen and an artist’s life.
Revaluing the human being and its surroundings, as well as the interdisciplinary and intergrupal dialogues, constitute the two fundamental aspects of Patrícia Oliveira’s performances.
Ana Luísa Barão, Art Critic
May 2011
Biography
Patrícia was born in Oporto. She lives and works in Oporto and Monção.
She studied at Faculdade de Belas Artes da Universidade do Porto (FBAUP), where she completed a bachelor degree in Sculpture. She is currently attending the 2nd academic year of the master degree programme in Sculpture, at the same institution.
Showing interest in different types of media, she has developed projects of a participative and peformative nature.
Exhibitions/Projects:
2011
O Sagrado e o Profano”. Curated by Geada. FBAUP. Oporto
2010
“ Miragens-2º Encontro Jovens Criadores”. Viana do Castelo.
2010
“ Coral Humano”. Sealife Oporto.
2010
“ Border Control”. Casa da Música. Oporto.
2009
“ Anteciparte”. Fundação Oriente
2009
“ Pondero”. Unidade de Saúde Familiar Porto-centro. Oporto
2009
“ Arqueologia do Fogo”. Museu do Bombeiro Valdés Sobral. Valença.
2009
“ O poder da cultura ou a cultura do poder ”, XV Bienal de Cerveira. Vila Nova de Cerveira.
2009
“ Importª Expor_te”. Festival Imaginárius. Santa Maria da Feira.
2009
“ Serralves em Festa”. Museu de Serralves. Oporto
2009
“ Miraxes”. Encontro Transfronteiriço de Jovens Criadores. Curated by Albuquerque Mendes.Tuy- Spain.
2008
“ 2ª Semana das Artes da FMDUP”. Reitoria da Universidade do Porto. Oporto
2008
“ Dispersão”. Curated by Ana Luísa Barão. Museu do Fórum Cultural de Cerveira.
2007
“ Ardina- jovem”. Instituto Português da Juventude. Viana do Castelo.
2005
“ Encontros Artísticos Luso Galaicos”. Casa do Curro. Curated by Rotary. Monção.
2009
Awards: 1º Prémio de Artes Plásticas; 2ª semana das Artes da FMDUP. Porto.
Works
O Emocionómetro
This work aims at the relocation of the analysis of the Individual. During the performance, a retrospective silence occurs in a short period of time, between the performance itself and the public.
After the performance people leave, carrying a stamp in their bodies that says: Balanced. The artist is interested in what the memory of going through the performance may cause in the viewer, even if it lasts only until he manages to rub the stamp off his skin.
O Espaço- Emoção (The Space – Emotion)
Patrícia Oliveira’s proposal refers to tracing those volatile, illegible things that occur/emerge within us. The aim is ambitious: to represent/translate our emotions. For that purpose, the artist built an emotions assessment device: the “Emocionómetro”.
Her work articulates the object with a performative act between the artist and the public, which results in an installation that contains her impossible project.
The artist follows the path of the new romantic concept initiated by Rebecca Horn in the 70’s. Building machines and devices, by joining engines to everyday life objects (knives, musical instruments, furniture, etc.) with the intention of expressing and verifying the human subjectiveness: feelings or states of mind which are often extreme.
The impracticality of the device does not mean the failure of the original intention. Instead, it is in the process of contact with the feeling of the Other that Art affirms itself as body – cathartic.”
In Anteciparte 2009. Museu do Oriente. Lisboa . 2009
Patrícia Oliveira
2011
Performance/ Installation
2009
Credits: Luís Nunes (partnership in Unidade de Saúde Familiar- Porto Centro)
1919-2009
1919-2009 occurred in the 90th anniversary of Associação Humanitária dos Bombeiros de Valença (A.H.B.V.V.) Humanitarian Association of Valencia Firemen.
The firemen training facility is the support for the action in this performance. This project was the result of a six month process, during which a certain dynamic was established between the artists and the A.H.B.V.V., as an attempt to dilute the boundaries between Art and Life, in the context of Colectivo Miraxes S.A.
This performance explores the concept of Body in the broad sense: body – social dimension, corporatism, body – activeness. Through an appropriation of the fireman’s working and communication mechanisms, an action is caused, and the performers embody an extension of the firemen team. The performers’ movements represent a fireman’s interpretation of a whistle sound composition.
Crédits: Partnership between André Fonseca and Leticia Garcês
Collaboration: Carlos Souto (performer) and Bombeiros Voluntários de Valença
Copyright Patrícia Oliveira
Auto-Pré-Luto (Self-Pre-Mourning)
Patrícia Oliveira used performance as a process towards a final installation, where her own body functioned both as the substance and the working base.
Auto-Pré-Luto (Self-Pre-Mourning) emerged from Mário de Sá Carneiro’s poem “Dispersão”. Through a ritualistic process, she goes into a transition to some other psychic dimension, in a constant allusion to the concept of cycle, to the eternal return.
This performance can be divided in two acts. The first is a preparation to the transition, the assimilation of the feeling of deep loss felt before. The second represents the surrender of the body to a metaphorical sacrifice.
The objects included in the installation are not presented as remains of the performance, but they carry on the the narrative of Auto-Pré-Luto, citing a past, a memory of a state of mind one doesn’t want to erase, but to assimilate.
Fotografia: Katarzyna Lawrynowicz