COVERED BY SKY

Covered by Sky portrays a series of site-specific and interactive installations and performances devised by the time-based artist Gustavo Ciríaco, inspired by milestones landscape experiences lived by individual artists from South America and Europe.

Driven by the curiosity on how artists feel and express the world through space, by how art, space and poetics intersect, this collection revisits and translate into art works the felt experiences lived by Brazilian artists Luciana Lara (Dance), Michelle Moura (Dance), João Saldanha (Dance), Argentinian artists Ana Laura Lozza and Barbara Hang (Dance), Chilean artist Javiera Péon-Veiga (Dance and Performance) and the Portuguese artists Claudia Dias (Dance), João Gabriel (Painting), Jonathan Uliel Saldanha (Music) and Miguel Palma (Sculpture).

Despite working in different fields of art, these artists have a trait that brings them together: the notion of territory, its poetic transformation towards a universe of their own. By diving into the works and practices, the desire is to reflect on how their poetic manipulation of space involve cultural antecedents and if they relate to what the sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos defends in his Epistemologies of the South as the diversity of perspectives and knowledge of the world, that is, the wisdom that non-dominant women and men have acquired in dealing with the world throughout history. 

In Thomas Moore’s Utopia, a very experienced sailor in his discovery of the world tells about a distant territory he has come to know, called Utopia. There was where civilization had apparently reached its most optimal and fair state. Though this work has become a reference to think about ideals of social contract and ways of living together, utopia is still a word marked by a fantasy-like character. Utopia is thought of as imaginary, nonexistent, an unreachable place, a cliché of a territory that will never be real. Refreshing the concept of utopia seems to me to be linked to the capacity of transforming and manipulating poetically the notion of real. It is in our imagination that lays its strength and its power.

Covered by sky is meant to be a journey meeting artists and places, collecting their different perspectives on landscape and sharing their ways of being mirrors of the world, between sensing and perceiving. In the same way we take someone for a walk, experiencing the path, the obstacles of the ground, these kinetic dioramas of fruition makes the experience of the visitors get assembled with the invited artists’ sensibilia and, hopefully, rendered anew and re-appropriated creating an ongoing mise-en-abîme. 

With this project, I reconnect with two points in my career: the political scientist and the artist. It is the beginning of a response in two powers. It is the continuation of an understanding, but also a step beyond. And beyond is beyond is beyond. As with the sailor imagined in Thomas More’s Utopia, fearless before fate, the artist without a grave shall be covered by the sky.

South American Collection – site-specific works

lawal | Javiera Péon-Veiga | Chile |  Land-art promenade (2021)

v a s t n e s s | Michelle Moura | Brazil | Open-air dance piece for 16 performers (2022)

landscape in a line | Luciana Lara | Brazil | Performance (2021)

modern promenade | João Saldanha | Brazil | Outdoors bike installation (2022)

from ant to bird | Ana Laura Lozza | Argentina | Installation for stairs (2022)

Otro ser | Barbara Hang | Argentina

Portuguese Collection

Poderiapoderá | João Gabriel | Portugal

Roda-Viva | Fortune-Wheel | Cláudia Dias | Portugal | Interactive stage piece (2024)

Blind seer | Jonathan Uliel Saldanha | Portugal – in progress

Cérebro | Miguel Palma | Portugal – in progress

VIDEOS

Roda-Viva – Panorama – CO-LABoratório

Covered by Sky- Arquipélago – Centro de Artes Contemporâneas 

Covered by Sky – Galeria Zé dos Bois

LAWAL – Walk & Talk Arts Festival

Modern Promenade – Festival DDD-Dias de Dança

Vastness – Festival DDD-Dias de Dança

From ant to bird – gnration

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COVERED BY SKY

Conception and artistic direction  Gustavo Ciríaco

Guest artists  Ana Laura Lozza (Ar), Barbara Hang (Ar), Cláudia Dias (Pt), Luciana Lara (Br), Javiera Peón-Veiga (Cl), Jonathan Ulliel Saldanha (Pt), João Saldanha (Br), João Gabriel Oliveira (Pt), Miguel Palma (Pt) and Michelle Moura (Br)

Guest artists – DAS THIRD cycle Forum Rosie Heinrich (Uk) and Siegmar Zacharias (De)

Performers | Lisbon Alina Folini (Ar), Bartosz Ostrowski (Pl), Filipe Caldeira (Pt), Gabriela Dória (Br),  Giulia Romitelli (It),  Mário Martins Fonseca (Pt), Sara Zita Correia (Pt) and Tiago Barbosa (Pt)

Performers  | Porto Alessandra Giacobbe, Alexa Papa, Bárbara Ramos, Eleanor Winkler, Inês Oliveira, Inês Pinheiro Torres, Katarina Llijasevic, Lucia Nordhoff, María Poncela, Uatumã Azevedo, alunos dos programa FAICC / Instável Centro Coreográfico.

Performers  | Santiago Belén Alfaro (CL), Paz Marin (CL), Francisco Bagnara (CL), Luche Moreno (CL), Trude Flem (CL) y Joaquín Catalán (CL), Camila Peña (CL), Sara Lecaros(CL), Danya Jerez (CL), Macarena Alvarez (CL), Octavia Luz (CL) and Andrea Contreras
Performers – Rio de Janeiro Bruno Levorin (Br), João Victor Cavalcanti (Br), Leo Nabuco (Br), Laura Samy (Br), Milena Codeço (Br), Priscila Maia (Br) and Rómulo Galvão (Br)
Performers  – Brasília Carolina Hofs, Clara Salles, Déborah Alessandro, João Gabriel (Br)

Light design Tomás Ribas (Roda Viva, From Ant to Bird, Vastness, Otro ser, poderiapoderá)

Research set design stage in Amsterdam Mayra Sérgio

Set design and architectonic project Gonçalo Lopes (LAWAL, Modern Promenade, Landscape in a Line, From ant to bird) and FAHR (Cérebro)

Music António Saraiva (Vastness), Jonathan Ulliel Saldanha (Blind Seer)

Photos Aline Belfort, André Delhaye, Felipe Pardo, Gui Garrido, Gustavo Ciríaco, João Grama, Mariana Lopes, Mayra Sérgio, Mia Ercoli, Pedro Sardinha, Sara Pinheiro, Tomás Ribas,  Hugo Sousa / gnration, Pierre Debourges and Thomas Lenden.

Administration  Missanga Antunes | Éfemera Colecção

Production direction Sinara Suzin and Carol Gameiro (PT) and Priscila Maia / Dos Vôos (BR)

Realization Dos Voos and Efémera Colecção

Co-production NAVE, Fundição Progresso, Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Teatro Municipal do Porto & DDD – Dias de Dança

Support República Portuguesa – Cultura | DGARTES – Direção-Geral das Artes e GDA

Covered by the Sky counted with Ibero-American fund IBERESCENA – Co-production Support for Spectacles 2020-2021 (Apoio à Co-produção de Espetáculo 2020-2021 /IBERESCENA).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos Aline Belfort, André Delhaye, Felipe Pardo, Gui Garrido, Gustavo Ciríaco, João Grama, Mariana Lopes, Mayra Sérgio, Mia Ercoli, Pedro Sardinha, Sara Pinheiro, Tomás Ribas,  Hugo Sousa / gnration, Pierre Debourges, Vicente Palma Nome and Thomas Lenden.