Visual poems – Day 24

“Poets and painters are born phenomenologists.” – Jan Hendrik

 
We usually talk about the great masters of cinema, but they are always in the masculine. Well, keep your eyes open, because Maya Deren is lined up right there, at the top.
In your experimental work we see a great capacity to manipulate space and time, however what fascinates me most is the movement of the body.
This continuity of movement of the dancer builds the narrative, the alteration of the physical space, but above all, it is very tactile.
Deren's images arouse in the viewer a corporeal feeling. Perspecting the hot sand, the stones in the hands, being hidden behind the foliage, the body of the dancer in tension, etc., everything goes beyond the screen.
In this sense, I wonder where is the tactality of our spaces, the so called atmosphere?
Is this more difficult to create? 
If M. Deren was able through cinema to awaken us to these feelings, why are they so difficult to exist in the real world? 
I believe, that like poets and painters, filmmakers are also sensitive to the essence of things (beings and objects). Perhaps we architects can learn from them how to instill in the formal principles and intentions of architecture the warm essence of life.

“ Taking a Lion for a Walk.”

A POEM THAT IS NOT OUR OWN

“ Taking a Line for a Walk.” – Paul Klee

Há duas semana atrás estreei-me no palco com uma peça sobre Babel (voltaremos a ela mais tarde). Durante muito tempo me tenho debatido sobre esta coisa de ser arquitecta sem o ser. Descobri há quinze dias que estar no palco a criar momentos e estórias foi o ponto mais alto de quase uma década.

Desde então que a pergunta “como seguir?” ficou a marinar dentro de mim. Estive numa conversa com o artista sul africano William Kentridge, que não conhecia, mas com o qual me identifiquei rapidamente. Kentridge trabalha com a sombra, em todos os suportes possíveis (desenho, fotografia, video, escultura) o que me fez repensar o que é ser um artista.

Marcel Duchamp queria abolir o conceito de arte, repensar tudo, deixar o ser humano exprimir-se de todas as formas possíveis e imaginárias. Nada contra, mas ainda me questiono e o talento, e o conceito de beleza,  e capacidade de nos emocionar? É mesmo tudo possivel?

Kentridge responde a todas as minhas perguntas de forma afirmativa. Toca-me na alma por me falar de África? Talvez! Por me levar num passeio a preto e branco no efêmero? Completamente.

O que é certo, é que me voltou a fazer pensar e repensar a sombra sobre outra perspectiva, tal como a Alegoria da caverna. Segundo Kentridge, a ideia do iluminismo é também ele um conceito colonizador. A ideia de obrigar as pessoas a ver algo de determinada forma. Fez-me analisar o papel secundário, mas preponderante, dos que projetam as sombras, também alí de certa forma, escravos.

“Para ver algumas coisas sobre um novo ângulo, ou até de uma forma completa por vezes é preciso olhar para a sombra, a luz pode cegar.”

Volto ao conceito de sombra, tardiamente quem sabe, para me redescobrir sob uma luz diferente, alguém que se molda e reconstrói todos os dias.

Por fim, artista!

The name Agnès

Already several people made me a face or wondered why I gave this name to my studio. The answer is not simple, although it is very logical to me. I can list a few names such as Agnès Varda or Agnes de Mille. Women who inspire me and whose legacy deserves to be honored, but that’s not why.

Two decades ago, in the library of the village where I grew up, I saw a photographic exhibition of abandoned girls in China. Due to the traditional preference for a boy and the law of the only child, many girls were abandoned or even killed. In the middle of this exhibition, I saw a picture of a 2-3-year-old girl with pink ribbons on her head. She was standing in the middle of many newborn babies, alone, with an expression of purity and unique beauty.

I have observed that image for many hours, for many days. She is my Agnès.

Agnes is a Latinized form of the Greek name ‘Αγνη (Hagne), derived from Greek’ αγνος (hagnos) meaning chaste, pure, innocent. That was the name I wanted to give that brave girl, who I don’t even know the fatum.

Nevertheless, each letter of the word has a meaning of what I want to pursue.

L’Agnès

  • L – Lunar / Luz (Light) /Local: Is the importance that I give to the stories of the places where I intervene, my preference for writing with objects a message that can last in time. It is also the wonderful way of drawing the spaces with the most beautiful material that exists, the light.
  • A – Amor (Love) : Architecture is shelter and shelter is love. It is a reminder to myself, what should prevail.
  • G – Gratidão (Gratitude): To the places that let themselves be unveiled, the people who put their dreams in me, the materials they allow themselves to be shaped, to those who transform them. To the spirits that fill the spaces and give them life.
  • N – Nostalgia : From the place that we call home and that I search unceasingly for each project.
  • E – Engenho (ingenious) / Empatia (empathy): To see things from another angle and to reinvent. Empathy to never forget that I am not the target of my creation.
  • S – Sensibilidade (sensitivity) / Sombra (shadow):Let the spaces and objects breathe and become what they should be. Create atmosphere. “The wonderful light that the shadow has.”

About Bakala energy

I had the privilege of learning about the culture and dance of the Congo and other African countries, with the dancer and choreographer Yvon Nana-Kouala.

Yvon is not simply an incredible dancer, he is also an excellent teacher, with an incredible ability to convey knowledge. With him I learned about bakala energy. A word Kituba, which represents man, the sun and all the aggressive energy we have in life. Its opposite, is nkento, that represents the woman, the moon and all the suits movements.

The congolese dance (and many others in Africa) is full of bakala energy, but it alternates with the nkento, like a heart beat. No one can be predominantly in a state of anger and tension. The beauty of what I have learned from this dance is that it also applies to our daily life, because in kina we learn to harness ourselves from bakala energy, redirect it or integrate it to our advantage.

For the Congolese, dance is the center of life, of the world, it is their vibration with the universe. They put dancing into everything they do, see harmonious movement in everything that exists and that’s the most beautiful thought I’ve heard in years.

Merci beaucoup.