SAMUEL SILVA

“Portelos, cancelas e biqueiros” is, first of all, a photographic project of archivist drive, started in 2013, and bringing together a set of photos about improvised agricultural artifices found in the mouths of windrows, marshes, or as part of paddocks or fenced lands from the interior geographies located between Alturas do Barroso and Cabeceiras de Basto. As marks of private property or brakes on the boldness of the cattle, these involuntary sculptures configure in themselves a surprising repertoire of combinations between materials, constructive and compositional subtleties that bring us back to childhood and to that whole puerile universe of freedom, ingenuity, and invention; they are a metaphorical force in a political reading of the reality of the interior of the country, which is subjected to the galloping exodus and emigration; they are also seismographs of an economy/ecology of survival that is typical of these places.
This exhibition presents, in dialogue with Alberto Carneiro’s work, a slideshow with a selection of slides from the archive (recently expanded) and a collection of drawings made ten years ago, even before the first photographic revelations, when the latent images (behind the eyelids or proudly engraved in the memory) reappear to us in the light of the mineral graphite or in the stains of the vieux-chêne.

Plastic artist, professor, and researcher, he lives and works in Porto.
His projects are characterized by their multidisciplinary nature – photography, drawing, installation, experimental poetry, author edition – and exploration of the relationships between artistic practice and social and political context.
He is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto, Ph.D. in Art Education, and Master in Contemporary Artistic Practices. As a researcher, he integrates the Institute of Art, Design, and Society of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto.
Since 2007, he has been researching practices on artistic pedagogies in non-formal environments and critical mediation in spaces linked to contemporary art such as Museums, Cultural Centers, and independent spaces, conceiving and guiding training events, workshops, and conferences, among other activities.