'FOGO POSTO'
Two-person exhibition with Diana Policarpo, 2022
at Lehmann + Silva, Porto
Exhibition text by Joana Rafael:
FOGO POSTO [ARSON] (2023) is the second installation made by Diana
Policarpo and Odete. Since LYSIS (2021), the artistic duo of Diana and
Odete have been exploring a theoretical base and a shared life
experience, developing a work that combines the various areas of the
audio-visual arts, within a multidisciplinary practice that makes use of
different media.
In the installation FOGO POSTO, Diana and Odete employ words, images,
sounds, touches of colour and lines to explore a poetic discourse that
touches upon science fiction and speculative fables. They use a variety
of resources, ranging from drawings on paper to film supports, in order
to transport the audience to a future in the aftermath of the history of
reproductive medicine inserted into patriarchal systems, without any
guarantees of reproductive justice. The installation invites us to
reflect upon institutional and constitutional discourses, perceptions
and experiences of (im)possibilities of autonomy and self-
determination, in relation to the body.
The narrative of FOGO POSTO is presented through a triptych composed of
three complementary videos, which cover various time frames over two
decades of history, being filled with facial expressions, emotions and
tones of sound. These tones highlight Diana and Odete’s expertise and
control over the creation of sounds. The group of sounds as a whole play
a central role in the development of the narrative and the conception of
the work presented, enhancing and enlarging the complete immersive
experience within the surroundings of the installation. Painstaking
details of environments, natural elements and the forms and colours of
herbal and cellular fragments appear in a relationship of kinship in the
drawings and videos. Despite being obsessive in relation to detail,
these elements are released from the visual structure of the cataloguing
and the scientific drawing and populate the exhibition space.
In the garden of human knowledge, where the seeds of discovery are
planted and grown, as well as in the space – and imagined future –
occupied by FOGO POSTO, we find botanical species that have repeatedly
echoed their medicinal and therapeutic virtues over the centuries, such
as Artemísia and E. Ginko. Among other species mentioned in the videos,
these plants emerge as ambassadors of a botanical wisdom and
intelligence. They transmit a certain reverence to the millennial
history of the plants themselves. In the installation, they offer us a
perspective about the importance of nature in the formation of science
and modern medicine and in the transformation of human societies.
