Out of Sight, Out of Mind
(2020)
Out of Sight, Out of Mind takes as its starting point places that remain difficult or virtually impossible to reach, whether through geographical isolation, political restriction, spiritual significance or the limits of human access. Known through coordinates, maps and images but rarely encountered directly, these locations occupy an ambiguous space between geographical fact and fiction, sustaining the fantasy of somewhere beyond the problems of the inhabited world.
The exhibition confronts this fantasy with the impossibility of complete escape. Point Nemo, the most remote location in the Pacific Ocean, for instance, contains traces of microplastic pollution despite its extreme isolation. Moving between references to distant sites and the physical conditions of the gallery itself, Out of Sight, Out of Mind considers remoteness as both a spatial condition and an escapist projection — and asks whether anywhere can remain truly outside the systems we might wish to leave behind.
Location
Balcony, Lisbon
Dates
2020
Materials
Acrylic resin, pigments, mixed textiles, found wood, rubber-coated steel U-bolts, acrylic paint, industrial floor paint, rope and marble aggregate.
Curated by Luís Manuel Araújo
Shown during VIA Arts Prize in 2019
Best Foot Backward was conceived in response to the architecture of Sala Brasil at the Embassy of Brazil in London, a former P&O ticketing hall whose decorative programme retains maritime motifs and traces of its history as a space associated with travel and departure. Working with these existing elements rather than treating the gallery as a neutral container, the installation used textile, plaster and sculptural interventions to redirect the architecture, producing a spatial experience in which orientation, reflection and scale became deliberately unstable.
The title loosely echoes the Curupira, a figure from Brazilian folklore whose backwards-facing feet are said to leave tracks that lead travellers in the wrong direction. Rather than illustrating the myth, the exhibition takes this gesture of misdirection as a structural device, connecting it to recurring concerns in the work around escapism, uncertainty and the construction of unreliable narratives. The space becomes both route and obstacle: familiar enough to navigate, but continually resisting a clear beginning, ending or direction.
