Confluence
2019

Confluência [Confluence]    2019                                           
installation with 62 stones collected from the margins of river Sorraia; video, colour, no sound, 16:9, 12'24''
 

    Confluence is a meditation about different images, metaphors and the materiality of the river, associated with a civilizational process. The project arises from an encounter with Coruche and the recognition of river Sorraia as a structuring natural presence. I propose a reflection around the binomial nature-construction: the river as a natural entity - the river as a resource.
One formulation of this dialectic is given by the use of materials gathered from the river margins, like pebbles. These stones that are simultaneously part of the river and shaped by it, are also potential matter of construction (used, for example, on the composition of Taipa mud walls or as part of the pavement, still visible at the local).
    Another formulation appears on a video that records the artificial rise of waters and their outflow. Evoking a historical negotiation with the floods, which paradoxically provoked damage on the village while fertilizing the fields, I think about the inversion of this relation of power. The river can now be manipulated, by necessity or for aesthetic /recreational purposes. With this, arise changes on the ecological dynamics of the river, seen through the form of eutrophication.
    Between strategies of documentation and symbolic formulation, I propose a reflection on the condition of river Sorraia, evoking a unifying intention, sustainable, between natural and built.