“ 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.

 

 

Cavafy

©GIORGOS SFAKIANAKIS, Project: Kois Associated Architects
“As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”

Amereida

“Pour l’enfant, amoureux de cartes et d’estampes,
L’univers est égal à son vaste appétit.
Ah ! que le monde est grand à la clarté des lampes !
Aux yeux du souvenir que le monde est petit !
Un matin nous partons, le cerveau plein de flamme,
Le coeur gros de rancune et de désirs amers,
Et nous allons, suivant le rythme de la lame,
Berçant notre infini sur le fini des mers :
Les uns, joyeux de fuir une patrie infâme ;
D’autres, l’horreur de leurs berceaux, et quelques-uns,
Astrologues noyés dans les yeux d’une femme,
La Circé tyrannique aux dangereux parfums.
Pour n’être pas changés en bêtes, ils s’enivrent
D’espace et de lumière et de cieux embrasés ;
La glace qui les mord, les soleils qui les cuivrent,
Effacent lentement la marque des baisers.
Mais les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là seuls qui partent
Pour partir, coeurs légers, semblables aux ballons,
De leur fatalité jamais ils ne s’écartent,
Et, sans savoir pourquoi, disent toujours : Allons !
Ceux-là dont les désirs ont la forme des nues,
Et qui rêvent, ainsi qu’un conscrit le canon,
De vastes voluptés, changeantes, inconnues,
Et dont l’esprit humain n’a jamais su le nom!”
Charles Baudelaire