Precarious Intervals

 

(2022)

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Precarious Intervals was created during an art residency at PADA Studios, located in Barreiro, in Lisbon’s South Bay. The studio is situated in the old Companhia União Fabril (CUF) industrial park, which formerly employed 10,000 workers, utilizing resources from the Portuguese colonies to produce a diverse range of goods from petrochemicals to carpets.

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The artwork comprises photographs silk-screen printed onto fabric sewn into a quilted floor piece, alongside a live performance. The artist collaborated with two dancers, photographing and filming them within the abandoned industrial park. A choreographic piece was created in response to the architectural remains of a site that once held the movements of bodies engaged in manual labour and production. The performance was staged in PADA’s gallery space, with movements reflecting the muscle memories of a space transformed and stripped of its original function.

The project explores the relationship between body, memory, labour, and image, considering how gestures and bodily knowledge persist beyond the conditions that produce them. The body becomes a site where histories of labour remain inscribed. The work traces the “phantom limbs” of industrialism: the residual movements, rhythms, and memories embedded within a place after its systems of production have been altered. Through the textile collage and performance, the work reflects on changing relationships between bodies and systems of production, from industrial labour to contemporary technological conditions.

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Materials; photographs silkscreen printed fabric, synthetic hair, jute.

Performance: 20min, dancers; Sara Montalvao and Rebecca Mateus

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More about the group exhibition at PADA here: https://www.padastudios.com/exhibitions-2022/033

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This project is funded by The Swedish Arts Grants Committee

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