PORTFÓLIO MÓNICA DE MIRANDA-cópia

MÓNICA DE MIRANDA

Tales of

Lisbon

Apresentado no Arquivo Municipal

de Lisboa - Fotográfico, 2020

Presented at Arquivo Municipal de

Lisboa - Fotográfico, 2020

Timeline, 2019

Impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão Inkjet Printing on Cotton Paper, 60x100 cm

Imagens da exposição no Image views Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa - Fotográfico, 2020

The Archive as A Productive Space of Empathy

Bruno Leitão

In order to understand this exhibition, it is important

to consider that the archive that appears in a form

close to its entirety started more than 10 years ago.

With her work “Archive Monica Lisbon”, the Luso-

Angolan artist recreates a photographic archive of

the city of Lisbon. An artist perpetuating,

expanding, and recreating the visual imagery that a

city imbues is not in itself a surprising event.

However, the archive is deserving of creating an

image of Lisbon that could be so unexpectedly

fictional: irregular constructed houses, selfconstruction,

and roads without concrete, that they

do not represent the visual imagery that propagates

from the city of Ulysses.

This is a city that appears fictional yet is entirely real.

The residences that Mónica de Miranda portrayed

no longer exist in many cases. This reality is invisible

to many; Lisboans and almost all foreigners.

The fictional elements that are introduced by the

artist in collaboration with writers, actors and sound

designers emerge later, in her other works where

experiences are guessed and attempts are made to

reconstitute lives, family events and destinations far

beyond cement and bricks.

The work “Arquitecturas” creates a posteriori

architectural plan for houses that were founded on

dreams instead of sketches. The luxury of urban

planning and architectural design doesn’t provide

happiness in the same way that its absence does

not invalidate it. We can consider architecture as a

privilege or a right, but we can’t comprehend that

sometimes dreams don’t wait for the right

conditions, on the contrary dreams and necessity

are the only conditions to build a house.

This archive doesn’t describe the object as much as

it describes its conditions and circumstances. For

this reason, in the eyes of the law, everything can be

an archive according to its provenance, temporal

condition and origin. The relationship that Michel

Foucault weaves between the archive, archaeology,

the institution and censorship form a system in

which the elements influence each other. The

influences that Monica de Miranda’s exhibition

proposes are not a story about winners over loses,

but rather a story that compels us to empathy and

allows us to inscribe invisible experiences in a city

that needs to make them visible and needs to make

them its own. Empathy is an essential phenomenon

for social and territorial cohesion.

Photography has always had a privileged

relationship with the notion of archives, its unique

character has always proved to be an undisputed

proof that what it portrays does exist. This

unquestioned existence provokes a narrative

indebted to western epistemologies in which

mechanical reproduction perfectly fits as evidence.

It is a raw technique for the need of reason.

Monica de Miranda’s archive reveals an invisible

Lisbon. But her artistic investigation is not only

claimed in the gradual demonstration that there is

an existing version of this city that does not appear

in the tourist brochures. In addition, not only does

the artist demonstrate this evidence, but she also

delves deeply into an inquisitive and humanising

process of these lives. Starting with photographic

evidence and moving on to dissatisfied literary

fiction we are left with photographic simplicity.

Her artefacts are loaded with symbolic weight that

end up subverting the expectation of a truth

corroborated by technical representation. As stated

by James Baldwin, “hate is always self-hate, and

there is always something suicidal about that.”

Baldwin talks about empathy, the indispensable

ability to understand the entire dimension of a city

in its unique plurality. Monica de Miranda’s work is

nothing more than the possibility of getting closer,

immersing ourselves in the real and fictional stories

of fellow citizens. This exhibition unlocks streets that

we didn’t know, but above all, it immerses us in the

extraordinary lives of those who go unnoticed.



Casa Aurora House Aurora, 2019 Instalação de som e impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão 45 x 30 cm cada Sound

installation and Inkjet Printing on Cotton Paper Each one 45x30 cm Miraloures, Estrada Militar, Loures Data de recolha Collection

date: September 15th 2019 Proprietário Owner: Desconhecido Unknown Demolição Demolition: 2009-2019

Casa Kapunga House Kapunga, 2019 Instalação de som e impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão 45 x 30 cm cada

Sound installation and Inkjet Printing on Cotton Paper Each one 45x30 cm Mira Loures Estrada Militar, Data de recolha Collection


Casa Cruzado House Cruzado, 2019 Instalação de som e impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão 45 x 30 cm cada

Sound installation and Inkjet Printing on Cotton Paper Each one 45x30 cm Talude Estrada Militar, Catujal Data de recolha Collection


Casa Luzia House Luzia, 2019 Instalação de som e impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão 45 x 30 cm cada Sound

installation and Inkjet Printing on Cotton Paper Each one 45x30 cm6 de Maio Estrada Milita1,, Data de recolha Collection date:

October 2019 Proprietário Owner: Desconhecido Unknown Demolição Demolition: 2016-2019



In(sul)ar

Apresentado no Presented at

Walk and Talk Festival, Açores,

2019

Video Still In(sul)ar, 2019, HD video sound, 9’’

Video Still In(sul)ar, 2019, HD video sound, 9 ‘’

Of Becoming (and of Death)

by João Silvério (Curator)

The work of Mónica de Miranda can be

understood as an agent that continually

reconnects artistic processes with the transitory

condition of the spectator. Regardless of the

themes that she investigates, or of socio-political

reflections that strap in her identity a real and

emotional sense with the place and history of

those who inhabit it, her works contain part of

her self-referential experience but not always

autobiographical, because it is not a testimony

of the journey but of someone who recognizes

herself in the transition and in the territorial

change.

This change, or this logic of circulation, lies not

only in the fact that she has lived in several

countries and known different cultures, but

essentially in the way she interprets the temporal

relations and the memory of these experiences,

that contribute to the construction of metanarratives

which are articulated under a line/

time; as an information flow that integrates

seemingly diverse places and temporalities. This

abstract line locates places that intersect at

different moments of time, and in the specific

case of her work they are not reduced to a linear

determination of the past, but rather to

recognize the temporal correlation that allows an

active relationship of the subject over the

present.

In this sense the exhibition “Atlantic – Journey to

the center of the earth” is exemplary of her work

process for two main reasons. The first is present

in the title in which we can infer two apparently

contradictory planes, the first being the word

that determines an immense and mutant

geographic mass that is the Atlantic Ocean; and

the second is the Journey to the Center of the

Earth, a reference to Julius Verne’s utopian work

that is close to her. However, the placement of

the hyphen amplifies this transitory possibility

which, although present in her work, is an

aggregating element that expresses the

multiplicity of senses in the reception of the

same by the viewer, having as a structuring line

the reference to two substances: water and earth

which are opposed in their constitution.

The second reason that leads me to this brief

reflection is the duality between the ocean and

the earth, a physical but simultaneously

immaterial differentiation, an imaginary that

goes back to the beginnings of humanity, and

for this same reason metaphysic: between

fluidity and solidity. It is riven by the need to

know what is hidden beneath the earth which

naturally supports the ocean and breathes in the

volcanic mouths of the Atlantic islands of the

Macaronézia, such as the Azores or, in this case

in particular, the Cape Verde archipelago,

specifically in Ilha do Fogo (Island of Fire).

Monica de Miranda recognizes in this island an

intensity of the life of our planet in the sense that

it is renewed by the volcanic eruptions that

ferment of fire and of lava that immediately

cools and everything crystallizes, everything

transforms and updates; in an approximation to

the paradoxical duality that the presence of the

volcano contains: between life and death. The

photographs of women dressed in black with

bare feet, as in “Untitled. From the series City-

Scapes” and “Formation”, or the artist’s own

body in the diptych entitled “Horizon”, are

relevant in the sense that this figure transmits

the idea of osmosis with the burned soil in which

its own regeneration survives the desertified

landscape. The volcano is a presence that rises

in the landscape and is also a recurring image in

the collective imagination and visual

representation throughout history. But in this

work of Mónica de Miranda is, above all, a sign

that presents a second skin that models and

transmutes the landscape, not only by the visual

mantle that covers all in an ash relieve, but

because it announces an interior and organic

experience that resides in an unknown place, so

close to the center of the earth, whether this

model is an imaginary and fictional construction

or a given geological matrix.

And as a fictional construction the intervened

pigmented and waxed series of photographs -

entitled “Bedrock”- rescue this intermittent

materiality which, while present, merges into the

printed image affirming in artist’s gesture the

intervention on the image as a recording of a

journey; a time that is updated in its finalization.

Under the same methodology, a sculptural

object in the form of a library shelf, contains

black sand inside a box in its base. This natural

element, the black sand, is also subject to the

logic of the image but escapes to the

photographic, contributing to the construction

of meta-narratives that are pointed by references

that approach territorial mapping. However, this

mapping is only recognizable if we take into

account the geography of places and the

temporal correspondence that is continually

reorganized in the becoming that Monica’s work

represents, in each layer, or in each register that

welcomes her affections, and undoubtedly in her

politic reflection that confronts us as image/time

of the places that Monica de Miranda seeks in

the correspondence of the Self with the Other.



Exhibition view, In(sul)ar, 2019 Walk and Talk Festival, Açores

Exhibition view, In(sul)ar, 2019 Walk and Talk Festival, Açores

South

Circular

Apresentado no Prémio Novos

Artistas 13 edição Presented at EDP

Foundation New Artists Award

13th edition, MAAT

South Circular, still frames from the video 2019

HD video, Sound, 22,57”

Cavaleiro Negro, Black Knight 2019, Impressão iacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão Inkjet printing on cotton paper, 80 x 240 cm

6 de Maio, 2019, Impressão iacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão Inkjet printing on cotton paper, 80x240 cm

Reading Circle , 2019, Impressão iacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão Inkjet printing on cotton paper, 80 x 240 cm

Tomorrow is

another day

Apresentado na galeria Presented at

Carlos Carvalho Arte

Contemporânea, Lisboa Lisbon, 2018

Sem título (da série City-scapes) Untitled from the series city-scapes, 2017, impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão inkjet print

on cotton paper, 70 x 105 cm

Imagens da exposição View from the exhibition Tomorrow is another day (Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa Lisbon, 2018

©João Grama

Untitled (da série from the series Twins), 2018, Impressão sobre papel de algodão Inkjet print on cotton paper 94,5 x 144,5 cm

Untitled (da série from the series Twins), 2018, Impressão sobre papel de algodão Inkjet print on cotton paper 50 x 75 cm

Achilles’ heel, 2018, Impressão jacto de tinta Inkjet print, 50 x 160 cm


©João Grama

Black boards, 2018, Impressão jacto de tinta Inkjet print, 58 x 90 cm

Still life, 2018, Instalação Installation, Impressão jacto de tinta Inkjet print, 7 60x40 cms,

Imagens da exposição View from the exhibition Tomorrow is another day (Carlos

Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa Lisbon, 2018

©João Grama

Imagens da exposição View from the exhibition Tomorrow is another day

(Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa Lisbon, 2018

©João Grama


©João Grama



©João Grama


©João Grama


©João Grama


©João Grama


©João Grama


©João Grama


©João Grama


©João Grama


©João Grama



©João Grama


©João Grama

Atlantic

Sem título (da série City-scapes) Untitled from the series city-scapes, 2017, impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão inkjet print on cotton paper, 70 x 105 cm

Eruption, 2017, Impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão Inkjet print on cotton paper, 70 x 105 cm

Bedrock, 2017 Intervenção sobre impressão jacto de tinta com ceras e pigmentos Wax intervention and pigments onto inkjet print, 33 x 50 cm cada each

Vulcano, 2017, Impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão Inkjet print on cotton paper, 4 x 70 x 105 cm

Formation, 2017, Díptico, Instalação fotográfica, Diptych, photographic installation, 90 x 205 cm

Horizon, 2017 Díptico, instalação fotográfica Diptych, photographic installation, 90 x 205 cm

Panorama

Ticket Office (da série from the series Cinema Karl Marx) 2017, Impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel fine art Inkjet print in fine art paper, 60 x 90 cm

Cinema Karl Marx (do projecto from the project Panorama) 2017, Impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel fine art Inkjet print in fine art paper, 100 x 249 cm

Hotel Panorama (da série from the series Panorama) 2017, Impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel Fine Art Inkjet print in fine art paper, 81 x 300 cm

Twins (da série from the series Cinema Karl Marx) 2017, Impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel fine art Inkjet print in fine art paper, 60 x 90 cm

Like a Candle in the Wind, 2017, Intervenção sobre impressão jacto de tinta com ceras e pigmentos Wax intervention and pigments onto photo, 33 x 50 cm





Panoramic in Moving Fragments,

Or Mónica de Miranda’s Twin Visions of

(Un-)Belonging

by Ana Balona de Oliveira

In the recent project Panorama (2017), Mónica

de Miranda returns yet again to looking at

modernist architecture in Angola. In Hotel

Globo (2014-2015), she had already critically

examined the changing urban surface of

Luanda through video, photographic and

performative incursions into the interior

landscapes of the 1950s Hotel Globo. The

modernist hotel is still functioning in Luanda’s

downtown, whose architectural heritage has

been increasingly replaced with gentrified

high-rise luxury buildings. In Miranda’s work,

the Globo became a spatio-temporal and

affective ‘lens’ through which her bodily gaze

looked at the multiple geographies and

histories of the city – colonial, postindependence,

post-Cold War, post-civil war –

in order to think the complexity of its layered

present and to imagine the possibility of

different futures.[1]

In Panorama, the abandoned Hotel Panorama –

located on the island of Luanda (Ilha do Cabo)

from where its guests once had panoramic

views of the city and the Luanda bay, on one

side, and the Atlantic Ocean, on the other –

becomes the main protagonist; or so the title

of the entire installation seems to tell its

viewers. But, in Miranda’s non-linear – and, in

fact, fairly non-narrative – visual story, there are

other architectural ‘characters’ in various

locations in Luanda and beyond. Furthermore,

many such vacant spaces appear occupied by

actual, if always enigmatic, characters; in the

case of Panorama, these are twin sisters. In

Hotel Globo (2014-2015), Once Upon a Time

(2012), An Ocean Between Us (2012) and

Erosion (2013), among other previous works,

the artist herself appeared on screen alongside

male collaborators, whereby she hinted at the

possible narrative existence of a couple as

much as at non-binary notions of identity (as far

as gender, sexuality, race, nation and culture

are concerned) and at a non-masculinist gaze.

In these works, the characters lend themselves

to being perceived as different versions of a

self that could be simultaneously male and

female, European and African. In Archipelago

(2014) and Field Work (2016), the twin sisters

made their first appearance within Miranda’s

oeuvre, as another strategy to address the ‘inbetweenness’

and the ‘doubling’ of self and

other and here and there that is proper to the

hybrid subjectivity of diaspora. Appearing as

children in the latter installations, in Panorama

the twins have grown up.

As we shall see, by drawing upon the name

and history of the Hotel Panorama, the

Panorama to which the installation as a whole

refers poses larger questions, if always deeply

personal and affective, on history, memory,

desire and a condition of (un-)belonging to

manifold spaces and times.[2] It also examines

the notion of the ‘panoramic’ gaze and of its

purportedly all-encompassing visual

knowledge and pleasure. The work disrupts

such a conception of the gaze and the

attendant possibility of fully containing,

retrieving or fixating the ever-changing

processes of personal and collective

becoming, particularly those marked by the

diasporic experience. So, although

contemplative, the gazing subjectivity in

Miranda’s work is far from totalized and

totalizing and, instead, avowedly fragmented

and fragmentary. The gaze – bodily, psychic

and geographically and historically situated – is

split into many gazes. It does attain some sort

of panoramic view, but only by the

juxtaposition of its fragments. Such fragments

do not equate the separated and categorized

parts of a given totality that is divided into

components only to be thoroughly mastered

and seamlessly made whole again as an object

of power/knowledge.[3] They do not equate

mere playful signifiers either, lending

themselves to the endless game of reification

and commodification of histories, spaces and

identities proper to what Frederic Jameson

famously called the postmodern cultural logic

of late capitalism.[4] The fragmented and

fragmentary nature of Miranda’s panoramic

visions – inhabited, affective and spatiotemporally

situated landscapes of architecture

and nature – resist the depoliticized moment

when meanings get lost and a concern for

agency is done away with. Meanings are always

contingent and positional, ever-changing and

relational, but, as far as being and becoming

are concerned, they are also arenas for

struggles of recognition and resistance.[5]

As to history, memory, desire and the condition

of (un-)belonging to manifold spaces and

times, Panorama’s multiple and multiplying

gazes do not redeem a sense of loss of stable

points of origin or rootedness – an origin that

could only mythically be seen to allow for a

unified vision, knowledge and experience of

the world, of the self and of communities.

Rather, such a loss is positively embraced in the

ethico-political activity of (un-)belonging to an

always shifting network of routes across

continents, islands and oceans.[6] Grounded in

her own autobiographical experience of being

from both Europe and Africa, Portugal and

Angola (with the United Kingdom and Brazil

also partaking of her affective geography), the

longing that arises from the loss of a stable

sense of belonging does not fall into the

mythic traps of nostalgia.

Full text here

Angolan House, 2017, Intervenção sobre impressão jacto de tinta com ceras e pigmentos Wax intervention and pigments onto photo, 33 x 50 cm




Field Works


Museu Berardo, 2017

When words escape, flowers speak, (da série from the series Twins), 2017, Impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel Fine Art Inkjet print in Fine Art paper, 170 x 234 cm

Known Album, 2016, Impressão jacto de tinta sobre papel de algodão, instalação fotográfica, medidas variáveis Inkjet print in Cotton paper, photographic installation, variable dimensions

Botanic gardens (da série from the series Arquipélagos), 2014, Inkjet print, instalação fotográfica photographic installation, 230 x 340 cm

Twins, 2016, impressão a jato de tinta sobre papel de algodão inkjet print on cotton paper, 75 x 400 cm

Temos reconhecido uma miríade de metáforas ligadas a

viagens – por entre imagens de navios, a paisagem

costeira, o mar, a natureza e edifícios não-identificados –

no trabalho fotográfico e fílmico de Mónica de Miranda.

Estes locais evanescentes são, por vezes, habitados por

dois personagens – um homem e uma mulher – que nos

surgem ocupados numa demanda por algo, num lugar

outro, fora do domínio contido pela imagem. Um agudo

sentido de impermanência é sugerido pela mudança de

lugares, humores, territórios e paisagens, que interpenetra

as imagens com inscrições profundamente nostálgicas.

Disso é exemplo a série intitulada Once Upon a Time

(2013), conceptualmente concebida como um diário de

viagem, uma esteira de retalhos de memórias, anseios,

casas projetadas e comunidades imaginadas, num fluxo

que conduz à catarse pessoal.

Se tomarmos o trabalho de Edouard Glissant, Poetics of

Relation, publicado em 1990, como ponto de partida para

uma análise de pertença e de território, colocamo-nos

diante de uma desconstrução do eu, onde a viagem e a

errância entram em cena.

Mais vincadamente, Glissant convida-nos a pensar

identidade como um rizoma que já não pode ser definido

como um sistema de raízes fixas, legados ou lugares, mas

antes como um produto das suas próprias correlações.

Deste modo, o autor considera os mitos antigos, textos

religiosos e outras articulações fundamentais da cultura

ocidental como narrativas de indivíduos desenraizados.

Da Odisseia de Homero a um conjunto de passagens

bíblicas, comunidades deslocadas e registos de viajantes,

as histórias da diáspora são tecidas na consciência

humana como um padrão uniforme e resiliente. Mas

deixemo-nos examinar a noção de diáspora, que se refere

a uma dispersão de pessoas para longe dos lugares que

elas, e seus antepassados, outrora habitaram, à luz do

trabalho de Mónica de Miranda. Gabriela Salgado

Crosswind, 2016, vídeo HD, som sound, 8’’

Crosswind, 2016, vídeo HD, som sound, 8’’

Control tower, 2016, impressão a jato de tinta sobre papel de algodão inkjet print on cotton paper, 150 x 250 cm

Landing, 2016, impressão a jato de tinta sobre papel de algodão inkjet print on cotton paper, 150 x 250 cm

City-scape, 2016, impressão a jato de tinta sobre papel de algodão inkjet print on cotton paper, 75 x 400 cm

Arquipélago


Carlos Carvalho Arte

Contemporânea, Lisboa Lisbon, 2018

Island (da série from the series Arquipélagos), 2014, Impressão jacto de tinta Inkjet print, 80 x 100 cm

Line trap (da série from the series Arquipélago), 2014, cotton treads on inkjet print , 52,5x70 cm

©Paulo Simão

Line trap (da série from the series Arquipélago), 2014, fios de algodão sobre impressão jacto de tinta cotton treads on inkjet print , 52,5x70 cm

©Paulo Simão

Line trap (da série from the series Arquipélago), 2014, fios de algodão sobre impressão jacto de tinta cotton treads on inkjet print , 52,5x70 cm

©Paulo Simão

Botanic gardens (da série from the series Arquipélagos), 2014, Impressão jacto de tinta, instalação fotográfica Inkjet print, photographic installation,230 x 340 cm

©Paulo Simão

Twins (da série from the series Arquipélagos) 2014, Impressão jacto de tinta inkjet print, 100x150 cm cada each (tríptico tryptich)

Paradise (da série from the series Under Construction), 2009, néon, 25 x 105 cm

©Paulo Simão

Vistas da exposição Views from the exhibition Arquipélago, Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa Lisbon

Islands (da série from the series Arquipélago), 2014, impressão jacto de tinta inkjet print, 91,5x600 cm

Islands (da série from the series Arquipélago), 2014, impressão jacto de tinta inkjet print, 91,5 x 800 cm


©Paulo Simão


©Paulo Simão




“Arquipélago” is a project of creation and

artistic research that reflects landscape

representation as a scenary, as an imagined

stage, recreated from the fictional sense that lies

behind the image of an island and the idea of a

botanical garden.

This exhibition shows how landscape opens to

view human participation in transforming the

environment, through this fundamental visual

reference function for the purposes of territorial

deconstruction. This takes place at the time

when the nature of the recreated becomes a

cultural exportation, loaded up with references,

symbols, subjet matters, which will converts

itself into cultural souvenirs.

Vistas da exposição Views from the exhibition Arquipélago,

Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa Lisbon

©Paulo Simão

Hotel Globo

Apresentado em Presented at Museu

Nacional de Arte Contemporânea -

Chiado, 2015

Hotel Globo, 2015, impressão jacto de tinta Inkjet Print, 40 x 60 cm






An Ocean

Between Us

Untitled da série from the series An Ocean between us, 2013, Instalação: 13 caixas de luz Installation: 13 light boxes, dimensões variáveis variable sizes

Untitled da série from the series An Ocean Between us, 2013, impressão digital com tintas de pigmento em papel semi-mate digital print with pigmented inks, 60 x 90 cm cada each



repeatedly suggests in these figurative details

that we do not know who are all these

protagonists. How is the urban advocating a

particular cause or idea of the constant flow of

people, when the settled lens should make

comprehensive the roots of trade and

commodities.

In Back Pack Paradise, Biting Nails, Road Lines

and Where r u from? maps and places, names of

cities and states persist as part of the body, as a

grafted nationhood, correlating global travel

with the rise in graffiti and tattoo subcultures. In

Road Lines, the palms are presented as maps of

places and travel, forced by cheap deals. In

Biting Nails, the video focuses on a single

character of a woman, whose nails are ‘painted’

with flags from different countries, gradually she

bites her nails, violently tearing these boundary

markers from herself. The transitory metaphor of

flight and loss is highlighted in the acerbic text “I

am not really there or here” on one of four

screen-printed Black Flags series (2010). In the

2009 installation Battle of Europe, much the

same notion was implied by presenting 11 EU

Blue boxing punchbags, hung in a tight circle

that contained the viewer more within its

broader circle of influence rather than allowing

the Schengen experience of borderlessness.

Staging and conceptualising the crisis for

postcolonial internationalism and multiculturality,

de Miranda explores its implausibility, the

detente history that affects the ex-colonies and

colonial subjectivities in a globalised world that

has recanted its debts and is currently whirling to

new economic instructions. Her work Changing

Hats suggests such a lack of balance and the

buffoon as the new subjectivity is explored in

Remain to stay…. Forever.

de Miranda’s graphic yet uncompromised visual

responses to the European Union competes with

the collective nightmares from historic and

geographical colonial haunting. Side by side

they twitch as an ugly unconscious mechanism of

denial that repudiates the interdependent

relationships of cultures and people. Her recent

photographic works including Hotel Globo and

Sleep Over provide the overlapping argument of

the singular community fast withdrawing to

become a place of values where European

essentialism thrives; most importantly where decolonisation

so necessary to move beyond visual

and portrayed geographies of race and places, is

indissolubly bound in corridors and pylons that

maintain the illusions of progression and control

at all costs. As the writer Ralph Ellison states ‘the

true artist destroys the accepted world by way of

revealing the unseen’2

1 The term is often used to refer to the Eastern

hemisphere specifically to Europe.

2 Ralph Ellison, ‘Introduction’. Romare Beardon:

Paintings and Projections, exh. Cat. Albany : The

Art Gallery, State University of New York, 1968

http://www.monicademiranda.org/texts/

Visual geography and recording Europe

by Shaheen Merali

The use of visual geography within the visual arts

has a long and discerning history. Initiated and

operating in the tradition of European

exploration and research, visual geography

represented the results of habitually

institutionalised fieldwork by the use of

paintings, photographs, drawing, prints,

sculpture and other forms of the visual arts. The

symbolic value of representation through the

visual arts provided a system of cross-reference

often of previously unrecorded subjects and

subjectivities that had remained localised and

widely unknown in the old world1. Prior to the

expeditions from predominantly the western

world, the circulation of this specialised form of

the visual arts through print and publication

allowed a mapping of the world according to

their research and studies; a form of mnemonic

system of patterns and images that

accompanied ideas or associations which would

assist in articulating a new world outside of the

European project and subject.

The circulation of visual geography within the

artworld and its institutions including museums,

auction houses and collections as well as its

presence in educational establishments and

societies provided, and continues to stipulate

within the contemporary, the accented history of

development versus underdevelopment. This

binary polarisation justified action around

difference and its suppositions with a dualism

that accommodated the ruthless power

struggles resulting from colonial imposition and

continuing within cultural and intellectual

postcolonial struggles.

The early work by the artist and researcher,

Monica de Miranda, between the years 2007-9, is

based on the evaluation of her personal

understanding of geographical accounts, within

an urban archaeology that becomes

despondently centralised in her later

videoworks; An Ocean between us, Erosion and

Once upon a time (2010-15) and the

photographic works Archipelego, Line trap and

Airport. The seminal work Black House (2009),

part of the Black Flags series, acts as a middle

passage to her practice. Black House is a barren,

permeable structure of a small hut or shed like

construction, sparsely erected from black fabric

over a metal and wire frame. Barrenly lit, the

sculpture is an overwhelmingly eerie experience

of an indoor space suggesting a transitory

dwelling rather than one that proposes any

robust sense of belonging.

Black House, like many of her early projects,

often engaged in rethinking urban life, and

reimagining and reanimating the infrastructure in

their experimental use of materials and formats

which included screenprinting onto coloured

fabrics, sporting objects covered in sequins and

the use of text to drive the context of her

insights. Since 2009, de Miranda’s oeuvre has

gradually traded the explorations in sculptural

forms for a confidence in lens-based

articulations, of multiple projections, duratran

lightbox and panoramic prints. This shift in the

later works allowed de Miranda to open her gaze

to geographies on the move; people, places and

architecture in a restless poetry that retains

factors including a feeling of greater voyeurism

and surveillance, providing ample meaning

beyond the preceding works’ polemic and

redemptive states.

The recent work is effective in its suggestive

abilities of urban malfeasance, often emotive

and remotely sited narratives unsettled between

a polyphony of systems and supporting

networks of departure, transition and arrival. The

photographic and videoworks explore the

cruelty of fate, the remainders for the

constrained within the messianic power of cities

and states. Similar to the visual propositions of

the Canadian artist Stan Douglas and the

Algerian born, British based photographer Zineb

Sedira; de Miranda examines the physical

manifestations and the interweaving threads of

culture, power, politics and histories. Her

subjects, when present, remain weary for each

thing that has changed, often looking outward

from the safety of venetian blinds in a state of

examination, half occluding their identities with

hands and hats.

References to the colonial past remain

fashioned; the subjects as characters wear white

clothes, a necessary accoutrement in the humid

tropicality of the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean

and the Mediterranean Sea. In the Erosion series

(2012), de Miranda returns to visual geography

in a contemporary fusion of two images, the high

rise and the seashore, as the emblematic

collision of progress and nature. The eroding

hulk of a beached cargo ship no longer remains

useful, its reason or presence discarded, through

which de Miranda accentuates the malaise and

deathliness for the places and lives it had

destroyed for its treasonous cargo.

de Miranda, continually offers figurative details in

her works, suggestive elements, often eroded

from multiple usage and the climate they

traverse, to suggest as she does so cryptically,

“Come here to the place you have never left” as

a central text in her installation Once upon a

time. de Miranda suggests a dueling tryst that it

is probable in that we never really leave a place

in the same way that places never leave us. She

Erosion

Untitled da série from the series Erosion, 2013, Impressão jacto de tinta Inkjet print, 26 x 40 cm


Untitled da série from the series Erosion, 2013, Impressão jacto de tinta Inkjet print, 26 x 40 cm cada each


Untitled da série from the series Erosion, 2013, Instalação fotográfica photographic installation digital print with pigmented inks, 80 x 372 cm

Untitled da série from the series Erosion, 2013, impressão digital com tintas de pigmento em papel semi-mate digital print with pigmented inks, 80 x 270 cm

Untitled da série from the series Erosion, 2013, video

Untitled da série from the series Erosion, 2013, video

Once Upon

a Time

Untitled da série from the series Once Upon a Time, 2011, impressão digital com tintas de pigmento em papel semi-mate digital print with pigmented inks, 60 x 90 cm cada each




Untitled da série from the series Once upon a time, 2011, impressão digital com tintas de pigmento em papel semi-mate digital print with pigmented inks, 60 x 90 cm cada each

Once Upon a Time, 2012, tríptico tryptich, video, HD, som sound, 3 ecrans de projecção, 3 projection screens

Biting

Nations

Biting nations 2007 4 videos em HD, som sound, 4’’(detalhe detail)

Biting nations 2007 4 videos em HD, som sound, 4’’

Mónica De Miranda é artista e investigadora.

Nascida em 1976 no Porto (Portugal) tem

ascendência Angolana. O seu trabalho é centrado

em questões como arqueologia urbana e geografias

pessoais apresentando-o de modo interdisciplinar

através de desenho, instalação, fotografia, vídeo e

som. A artista explora a forma expandida e as

fronteiras entre a ficção e o documentário.

Foi nomeada para o Prémio NOVOBanco tendo

mostrado o seu trabalho no Museu Berardo (Lisbon,

2016). Mónica foi também nomeada para o Prémio

Piclet Photo Award (2016).

As sua exposições individuais incluem: Prémio EDP

Novos artistas (MAAT, Lisboa, 2019), Geografia

Dormente (Galeria Municipal de Arte, Almada,

Portugal, 2019); Tomorrow is another day (Carlos

Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa, 2018);

Panorama (Banco Economico, Luanda, 2018);

Atlantic; A Journey to the center of the Earth (Galería

Sabrina Amrani, Madrid, Spain, 2017); Panorama

(Tyburn Gallery. London, UK, 2017); Arrivals and

departures (Palácio D. Manuel, Évora, 2016); Hotel

Globo (Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea do

Chiado, Lisboa, 2015); Arquipélago (Carlos Carvalho

Arte Contemporânea, Lisboa, 2014); Erosion

(Appleton Square, Lisboa, 2013); An Ocean Between

Us (Plataforma Revólver, Lisbon, 2012); Novas

Geografias (198 Gallery, London / Plataforma

Revólver, Lisboa / Imagem HF, Amesterdão, 2008).

As sua exposições individuais incluem: Fiction and

Fabrication. Photography of Architecture after the

Digital Turn (MAAT, Lisboa,2019); Doublethink:

Doublevision (Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turquia, 2017);

de Xira (Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal,2017);

Contemporary African Art and Aesthetics of

Translations (Dakar biennial, Dakar, 2016); Biennal

Internationale de l’Art Contemporain de Casablanca

(Casablanca, Marrocos, 2016), Addis Foto Fest (Addis

Abeba, 2016), Telling Time (Rencontres de Bamako

Biennale Africaine de la Photographie 10 éme

edition, Bamako, 2015); Ilha de São Jorge (14th

Biennial of Architecture of Venezia, 2014); Line Trap

(Bienal de São Tomé e Principe, 2013); Do silêncio ao

outro Hino (Centro Cultural Português, Mindelo, Praia,

Cape Verde 2012); Once upon a time (Carpe

Diem, Lisboa, 2012); L’Art est un sport de combat

(Musée des Beaux Arts de Calais, França, 2011); This

location (Mojo Gallery, Dubai, 2010); She Devil

(Studio Stefania Miscetti, Roma, 2010); Mundos Locais

(Centro Cultural de Lagos / Algarve, Lagos, 2008); Do

you hear me (Estado do Mundo, Fundação Calouste

Gulbenkian, Lisboa, 2008); United Nations (Singapure

Fringe Festival, Singapura, 2007). Mónica de Miranda

participou em diversas residências como:

Archipelago (French Institute, Mauritius, 2014), Verbal

Eyes (Tate Britain, Londres, 2009); Muyehlekete

(Museu Nacional de Arte, Maputo, 2008), Living

Together (British Council/ Iniva, Georgia/Londres,

2008). Expôs também nas feiras Paris Photo (Paris,

2013-18), ARCO Madrid (Madrid, 2013- 2017), ARCO

Lisboa (Lisbon, 2016-2018), 1.54 (Londres e Nova

Iorque, 2016 - 2018), ArtBo (Bogota, 2017), Artissima

(Milan, 2017). O seu trabalho é representado em

colecções privadas e públicas como Fundação

Calouste Gulbenkian. MNAC, MAAT, Arquivo

Fotográfico de Lisboa, Centro Cultural de Lagos.

www.monicademiranda.org.

Mónica De Miranda is an artist and researcher.

Born in 1976 in Porto (Portugal) she has an Angolan

background. Her work is based on themes of urban

archaeology and personal geographies

and works in an interdisciplinary way with drawing,

installation, photography, film, video and sound. She

explores the expanded forms and the frontiers

between fiction and documentary. She was

nominated for Novo banco Photo prize and exhibited

at Museu Berardo (Lisbon, 2016). Mónica was also

nominated for Prix Piclet Photo Award (2016).

Her exhibitions include: Prémio EDP Novos artistas

(MAAT, Lisbon, 2019), Geografia Dormente (Galeria

Municipal de Arte, Almada, Portugal, 2019);

Tomorrow is another day (Carlos Carvalho Gallery,

Lisbon, 2018); Panorama (Banco Economico, Luanda,

2018); Atlantic; A Journey to the center of the Earth

(Galería Sabrina Amrani, Madrid, Spain, 2017);

Panorama (Tyburn Gallery. London, UK, 2017); Arrivals

and departures (Palácio D. Manuel, Évora, 2016);

Hotel Globo (Museu Nacional de Arte

Contemporânea do Chiado, Lisbon, 2015);

Arquipélago (Galeria Carlos Carvalho, Lisbon, 2014);

Erosion (Appleton Square, Lisbon, 2013); An Ocean

Between Us (Plataforma Revólver, Lisbon, 2012);

Novas Geografias (198 Gallery, London / Plataforma

Revólver, Lisbon / Imagem HF, Amsterdam, 2008).

Her collective exhibitions include: Fiction and

Fabrication. Photography of Architecture after the

Digital Turn (MAAT, Lisbon,2019); Doublethink:

Doublevision (Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey, 2017);

Daqui Pra Frente (CAIXA Cultural. Rio de Janeiro,

Brazil 2016); Le jour qui vient (Galerie des Galeries.

Paris, France, 2017); Bienal de Fotografia Vila Franca

de Xira (Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal,2017);

Contemporary African Art and Aesthetics of

Translations (Dakar biennial, Dakar, 2016); Biennal

Internationale de l’Art Contemporain de Casablanca

(Casabalanca, Morocco, 2016), Addis Foto Fest (Addis

Abeba, 2016), Telling Time (Rencontres de Bamako

Biennale Africaine de la Photographie 10 éme

edition, Bamako, 2015); Ilha de São Jorge (14th

Biennial of Architecture of Venezia, 2014); Line Trap

(Bienal de São Tomé e Principe, 2013); Do silêncio ao

outro Hino (Centro Cultural Português, Mindelo, Praia,

Cape Verde 2012); Once upon a time (Carpe

Diem, Lisbon, 2012); L’Art est un sport de combat

(Musée des Beaux Arts de Calais, France, 2011); This

location (Mojo Gallery, Dubai, 2010); She Devil

(Studio Stefania Miscetti, Rome, 2010); Mundos

Locais (Centro Cultural de Lagos / Algarve, Lagos,

2008); Do you hear me (Estado do Mundo,

Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, 2008);

United Nations (Singapure Fringe Festival, Singapure,

2007). Mónica de Miranda has participated in various

residencies such as: Archipelago (French Institute,

Mauritius, 2014), Verbal Eyes (Tate Britain, London,

2009); Muyehlekete (Museu Nacional de Arte,

Maputo, 2008), Living Together (British Council/ Iniva,

Georgia/London, 2008). She also exhibited at Photo

Paris (Paris, 2013-18), Arco (Madrid, 2013- 2017), Arco

Lisbon (Lisbon, 2016-2018), 1.54 (London and New

York, 2016 2018), ArtBo (Bogota, 2017), Artissima

(Milan, 2017). Her work is represented in private and

public collections, such as MNAC, MAAT, Fundação

Calouste Gulbenkian. Arquivo Fotográfico de Lisboa,

Centro Cultural de Lagos.

Backpack paradise 2007, tríptico tryptich, impressão jacto de tinta inkjet print, dimensões variáveis variable sizes

Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea

Rua Joly Braga Santos, lote f r/c

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