Visual Strolls
seasonal residency
Visual Strolls is a residency space for artists who share an affinity for landscapes and wilderness, inner and outer. Foresta is changing with every season as the real forest does. In cyclical circularity it celebrates changing seasons of nature and of our lives. As snow melts away, as days grow longer, as leaves change colour, as they fly with the wind, as stillness settles in, as warmth returns, as birds cross continents — at the turn of each seasonal moment we invite a different artist to bring a new time of the year to Foresta by creating a portrait of time that later becomes part of the permanent Museum of Seasons.
In summer 2017 our invited artist was Ana Ventura. Ana is a multi-facetted artist and illustrator based in Antwerp and Lisbon. She is working with a wide variety of media, creating illustrated books, embroidery sets, decorative wall stickers, photographs, screenprints, postcards, clothes and accessories.
Summer 2017 Portrait
Mulher sem memória
Por vezes esqueço-me do meu corpo e quando isso acontece vou a correr para casa para ler os recados que lá deixei para mim na parede, já a contar com estas situações. Nos recados deixo o nome dos braços, das pernas, da barriga, dos cotovelos, dos joelhos, dos pés, do pescoço, dos sovacos … E leio todas as palavras e decoro-as a todas por ordem alfabética. Mas por vezes acontece esquecer-me também das imagens dos nomes dos braços, das pernas, da barriga, dos cotovelos, dos joelhos, dos sovacos… e é nesses momentos que jogo a minha vida como um puzzle, sempre a tentar encaixar as partes do corpo certas, nos nomes certos, nas funções certas… Acho que foi por isso que escrevi esta página... para falar contigo… porque é curioso… eu nunca me esqueço de ti… mesmo quando me esqueço de tudo o resto, nunca me esqueço de ti e queria combinar contigo uma mnemónica para quando me esqueço de mim, pode ser?. Faço assim: sempre que me acontece esquecer de respirar, só tenho de pensar em ti porque basta-me imaginar-te e fico logo com um formigueiro nos pés. O formigueiro faz-me sair de casa, porta fora, em desespero, à tua procura. Depois só tenho de te encontrar e tudo é simples: Olho para ti e o meu lado esquerdo começa a bater muito depressa, a doer, como se fosse bicado por um pássaro. Cada batida percorrendo todas as ramificações internas do meu corpo. Lembro-me de que tenho coração. Começo a corar muito, a ficar muito vermelha de vergonha só com a ideia de poderes perceber que o meu coração bate por ti e então lembro-me da minha cara, e lembro-me que prefiro a tua cara à minha, e o calor é tanto e tão grande que só me apetece morrer, como vi num filme, e aí lembro-me que morrer é deixar de respirar e faço exatamente ao contrário, respiro, respiro, respiro, arfo até me vir à cabeça a imagem nítida do teu nariz que agora deve estar quase colado ao meu. Como já sei de antemão que o meu amor por ti tem miopia, faço pontaria e tropeço no teu nariz, só para me desculpar na tua boca, é aí que me lembro que devia usar óculos mais vezes para te ver melhor; beijo-te com muita força e muitas aftas e tu confirmas que os meus beijos sabem a Pyralvex. Desatamos os dois a correr, eu porque me lembro que já devia ter tomado a minha vitamina C e tu porque tens medo que eu não saiba o caminho para casa. Chegamos a casa, comemos laranjas e eu conto até 10 para ter a certeza que ainda sei contar. Acabo no 10 como previsto, sem me esquecer de nenhum número pelo caminho, e deixo-me cair nos teus braços, até porque não me lembro de que lado ficam as pernas e nem sequer me aguento em pé. Fazemos amor às escondidas da memória … e assim a engano, enquanto deitas por terra migalhinhas que marcam os caminhos da floresta do meu corpo… Adormeço descansada. Afinal ainda tenho (quase) tudo no lugar…Patrícia Portela
Woman with no memory
Sometimes I forget about my body, and when that happens I run home so I can read all the messages I left there for myself, hanging on the wall, stuck to the fridge, already taking into account this type of emergency. In these messages I write the names of my arms, my legs, my belly, my elbows, my knees, my feet, my neck, my armpits… and I read all of the words and I memorize them all in alphabetical order. But sometimes it also happens that I forget the images of the names that correspond to the arms, and to the legs, and to the belly, the elbows, the knees, the armpits, and it is during these moments that I play my life as if I would do a puzzle, constantly trying to fit the right pieces of my body to the right names in the right functions. And this is why I am writing you right now… because suddenly it occurs to me that despite the fact that I am able to forget almost about everything, I always seem to manage to never forget you, and this is why I would like to formulate a plan to be activated in case I forget about myself. We could simulate it like this:
Everytime I forget how to breathe, I just have to remember to think of you, and as soon as your image comes to my mind, my feet start to tingle in an unbearable formicary that forces me to get out of the house. I run out into the street desperately looking for you. Then, if I manage to find you it all gets very simple: the moment I look at you, the left side of my chest starts pounding very hard, very fast and in pain. That is when I remember I have a heart. I start to blush, my cheeks getting redder and hotter with the mere thought that you might understand that my heart is pounding because of you, and this is exactly how I remember that I have a face and I immediately conclude that I prefer your face to mine, and by now I feel the heat not only in my cheeks but all over my body, and the heat is unbearable that I just want to die exactly like I saw once in a movie, and this is when I recall that to die is to stop breathing so I try to do exactly the opposite in order to stay alive, and I breathe and breathe and breathe the best I can, and this is how I remember I have a nose and consequently that you have one too, and yours is probably very close to mine by now. Because I know beforehand that my love for you is myopic – you know I am a little short-sighted – I aim sharply at your nose so I can apologize myself in your mouth. I am reminded that I should wear glasses while I kiss you with all my strength and all my sores, and you tell me my kisses taste like Pyralvex solution, you know, the green stuff for mouth ulcers. I just want to disappear, my body seems to be consistently all there and that feels stranger then when it was not, so I have no other alternative but to start running, so I run, and strangely enough you start running too. I run because I forgot to take the vitamin c pills I left at home, you run after me because you are worried that I might not know the way home anymore. We both arrive at my apartment, we both eat oranges, I count to ten to reassure myself that I can still count. I end by 10 and I fall into your arms, mostly because I have no clue on which side my legs really are and I find it difficult to stay standing on my feet. We make love to cheat my memory while you leave little crumbs behind to mark the way back into the forest of my body. I fall asleep soundly. (Almost) Everything is still in the right place.
Patrícia Portela
About Visual Strolls
Visual Strolls is not only an online gallery, an exhibition room, a portrait into the work of the invited artist. It is also a part of our long-term research, understanding arts and creativity as forces that change human states of attention in manifold ways, as forms of cognition and perception, divergent perspectives and poetry of vision, access to intuition and imagination, and empowerment for conscious creation of culture. You can read more about Art into Life research here.
Cover image: Ana Ventura