THE PLASTIC HEART MANIFESTO
As soon as I learned to write, my friends and I played a game every day. With a piece of paper, we predicted the future. The name of the man we were going to marry, how old we were going to be when it happened, how many kids we were going to have and where we were going to live. “Pedro, twenty-five years old, four children, in London”. The future was exactly what it was supposed to be. From an early age, ready to walk down the aisle.
Created by capitalism to love — and love only — there are only three paths for women: subservience, madness or death. Women under capitalism must love a very specific kind of love. A love that gives all without asking for anything in return; unquestionable and eternal; inescapable. Women’s despair is blood coloured.
Created by capitalism to love — and love only — there are only three paths for women: subservience, madness or death. Women under capitalism must love a very specific kind of love. A love that gives all without asking for anything in return; unquestionable and eternal; inescapable. Women’s despair is blood coloured.
"The Plastic Heart Manifesto" is the third and last part of my thesis project. It is an installation-performance strongly influenced by the story of Pippa Bacca and bell hooks' book, "All About Love: New Visions." Through this project, I critically examine the eurocentric cis-heteropatriarchal system that not only governs— not only, but also – our emotions, therefore questioning the role of social media in shaping and maintaining these connections."
photographic record of performance, 2022
DAY 3:
I LOVE YOU
day three: i love you is an installation that consists of projecting messages onto a screen connected to a proximity sensor. As the viewer moves away, the messages start to fire faster and faster. Taken from real conversations, these messages are an example of the manipulation techniques used in maintaining abusive relationships.
The internet and social media have enabled such tactics to be taken to a new level: we are never alone, we must always be accessible and always reply. In the post-cybernetic monogamous narrative, to be unavailable or offline is the same as to not love.
video, 2022
WHY ARE YOU
CRYING?
The photobook "why are you crying" constitutes the first part of my thesis project. Through a visual narrative, it raises awareness about the subtle abuses that creep into relationships.
Abuse is a silent intruder, insidiously sneaking into our days, exploiting the cracks and hiding in the shadows that haunt us. The photographs aim to unveil the complex emotions that arise when loving someone who oppresses and hurts you, as well as the process of breaking free from such a relationship, the healing process, and self-discovery.
Abuse is a silent intruder, insidiously sneaking into our days, exploiting the cracks and hiding in the shadows that haunt us. The photographs aim to unveil the complex emotions that arise when loving someone who oppresses and hurts you, as well as the process of breaking free from such a relationship, the healing process, and self-discovery.
watch as i disappear
by the violence of your hands
it all takes me back
to the white and translucent lava
and as the seagulls pretend to be statues
watching as you spit on me
i make a promise
to not let myself die as ophelia
drowned in a river of blood and semen
nothing white is good or pure
all the pain finally turns in to water
and, as i set fire to you god's temple,
i can, at last, tell you
why i am crying.
by the violence of your hands
it all takes me back
to the white and translucent lava
and as the seagulls pretend to be statues
watching as you spit on me
i make a promise
to not let myself die as ophelia
drowned in a river of blood and semen
nothing white is good or pure
all the pain finally turns in to water
and, as i set fire to you god's temple,
i can, at last, tell you
why i am crying.
MIL
CIDADES
For Tuan (2012), it is by progressively attributing meaning to a space that it becomes a place. The same space can compose different places since the place, here, derives from the individual experiences lived in them and that can generate in the subject both a feeling of topophilia and topophobia. In reference to Husserl's theory, Donohoe (2014 p. 44) describes the dichotomous correlation between homeland and alien world. The former, by defining a specific notion of normality, also establishes, at the same time, the abnormality of the later through the construction of the individual in relation to his place of origin, which consolidates in him the habits through which bodies occupy these spaces, and reiterating that, even if there is an attempt on the part of the individual, primary bodily habits are not completely liable to be erased by new habits.
That is, the place where the individual moves to will always be interpreted and lived in relation to his place of origin.To the migrant individual, these relationships are even more poignant. The immigrant, displaced from his origins, is confronted by another culture, ruled by different codes, customs, rituals and traditions, thus initiating in them a process of identity reconstruction, a reconfiguration of habits and socio-cultural behaviour patterns. So, it is not an exaggeration to say that the immigrant lives a life of duality, divided between the native past and the alien present, intertwined by memory and experience, which configure the difference between “being from”, “being in” and “belonging to” a place
video, 2021