Artist Newsletter _ Number Three
I hope you are well and ready to enter this winter with some warm cosy energies. And I hope that everyone here in Lisbon is fine, despite the challenging weather of these last few days. This is the third and last newsletter of 2022, possibly the year that has gone by the quickest for me. I am just starting to wrap my head around everything that has been going on. I will share already that I have plans for this newsletter, and preparing a platform move for 2023. I will focus more on my projects and share more about my process. I hope you’ll stay around! Wish you a warm holiday time and end of the year and a wonderful start to the new one!
Nov-Dec 22 _ newsletter number three
Olà,
My name is Francesca, I am an artist based in Lisbon. My creative work focuses on photography and writing, creating visual narratives, experimenting with analogue processes and investigating visual and written archival material.
Read more on my website.
Back from Celeuma#2 Art Residency
My November started with Celeuma, an art residency/retreat organised by Tira-Olhos - Associação de Fotografia Experimental. I spent a week in the cosy and inspiring accommodation provided by Tira-Olhos’ founder Sofia, with the single task of coming up with “something”, the only “restriction” was for it to be photography-based. Sérgio, the previous resident, left some interesting hints that definitely influenced me when exploring and soaking up (quite literally considering the rainy weather) the surroundings.
Other than that, I enjoyed sitting by the fire on rainy days, reading aloud to myself in the morning after breakfast, making plans for the day. I enjoyed exploring the area, my feet sinking on the wet clay brought to the surface by continuous rain, recording my thoughts on audio, and journaling about them before going to bed. I enjoyed cooking for myself and listening to podcasts instead of watching series, picking up books from the bookshelves in the house, looking for signs, sitting on the terrace catching the last (and sometimes only) five-minute slice of sunlight.
I even enjoyed the storm that woke me up on one very early morning. I got up and kept myself company with the sound of the typewriter, then went back to bed to warm up. I realised that I need silence, and that whilst I am quite fine on my own I do need to explore, to discover, to investigate and to absorb words.
Perché ti ricordi sempre: Limited Artist Edition in the Making
I’ve decided to self publish a very limited edition of my artist book Perché ti ricordi sempre. I’ve worked on this project over the last year and a half, had the chance to show it in two different group exhibitions, and I realised it’s important to me for it to be accessible in the form of the book. The book puts together self portraits and archive photos with written material (journals, loose notes, letters, reports) that have never been on show before. PTRS talks about four generations of women in my family, but it is also an inquiry into topics like identity, motherhood and being a woman in a patriarchal society. A society that, over more than a century has kept women bound to restricted roles, limiting them in the exploration and eventual fulfilment of their own individuality.
The book exists for now as a unique copy: 20x25 cm, hard cover, paper Munken 130gr., bound by hand with coptic binding, hand-made fabric cover. It will be on show at IPCI Porto between 17th December 2022 and 13th January 2023, within the exhibition Cinco Anos de Fotolivros (5 Years of Photo Books) putting together books and dummies created by students of IPCI (more info here).
Zine A History of Water
A few copies of the photo zine I’ve self published are still available!
Size A5 landscape (21 x 14.8 cm); 40 pages (paper Munken Lynx 120 gr); soft cover (paper Modi 285 gr). More on this project, the zine and the exhibition on my website.
Recap of the Group Exhibition Postepisteme (Festival Emotiva)
The group exhibition Postepisteme. Dissidències, argumentaris i transicions showing the works of Deebo Barreiro, Raquel Calviño, Alexandre Folgoso, Polly Hummel, Sofia Pacheco, Maria João Salgado and myself, curated by Vitor Nieves, closed its doors last weekend (11th of December 2022). The show was part of the festival Emotiva and you can watch the videos and photos of the exhibition on Vitor Nieves’ site. Clavoardiendo, a digital magazine specialised in contemporary photography, featured a review of the show (read the full article in Spanish here).
IPCI, the photography school that produced the show, had the artists record videos and talk about their work, you can watch the videos on the YouTube page of IPCI.
VISTA Limited Edition Fine Art Prints
Talented photographer and dear friend Tessy Morelli and I have recently launched a new project: VISTA. We’ve been thinking for a while about creating a space to share our photography and the work of other artists too, discussing ways to support ourselves financially without betraying our values. We both realised we have work that has not been shared before and finally decided to curate a selection of images that speak to us, and make them available in limited edition, high quality prints. We’ll be working with a print lab here in Lisbon. For the moment VISTA is an Instagram account, where we will gradually publish available artworks, but we have bigger plans… so stay tuned!
