O Morador
Installation
210 x 900 x 900 cm (approx.)
83 x 354 x 354 in (approx.)
Porto Alegre, 2022
Installation
210 x 900 x 900 cm (approx.)
83 x 354 x 354 in (approx.)
Porto Alegre, 2022
With the work O Morador, Gustavo Prado proposes a reflection on how cities are organized and how they should be altered to better meet the needs of their inhabitants. Composed of 27 sliding aluminum doors with mirrored vinyl stickers, the installation creates a unique experience for the body and perception of visitors, as well as for the urban landscape in which it is installed. An exercise in negotiating space and its possibilities, the work forms a kind of controlled labyrinth where the doors may or may not be locked according to a predetermined program set by the artist. As they are constantly realigned, the doors face each other, creating infinite reflections that expand the perception of distance and depth. O Morador creates a space in constant transformation, made of both the material and the immaterial, of bodies and images, of segments of the city and sections that can only be seen through small gaps.
In: 13ª Bienal do Mercosul: trauma, sonho e fuga. Porto Alegre: Fundação Bienal do Mercosul, 2022. p.30-33)
In: 13ª Bienal do Mercosul: trauma, sonho e fuga. Porto Alegre: Fundação Bienal do Mercosul, 2022. p.30-33)
Excerpt from the proposal:
The Morador is not merely a construction, an inanimate object, like so many other unfinished works in the central region of Porto Alegre (RS, Brazil). It is like a large labyrinth built with doors made of metal frames and mirrors, using materials that are found in constructions all over Brazil: from the president's palace to the humblest homes. At the same time, the stability and robustness provided by the industrial materials coexist with the idea of the structure being in a constant state of change. This installation is like an experience, an invitation to coexist, to share, and to explore everything this space has to offer, both individually and collectively.
The Morador is made of people, people from all over the city. People who came there just to see it, and people who are passing by and stop to take a look. Inside it, there are people of all sizes and ages, people who don't know each other but meet. People who know and recognize each other. People who open doors facing one another and look at each other directly. People walking side by side, and people walking in different directions, respecting each other. Inside, there is a form of coexistence, without many words. A shared time that is scarce because it is so attentive and yet so distracted. Outside it, there is one city, inside it, there are many. It is made of the city, made for the city, with the city.
The Morador is not merely a construction, an inanimate object, like so many other unfinished works in the central region of Porto Alegre (RS, Brazil). It is like a large labyrinth built with doors made of metal frames and mirrors, using materials that are found in constructions all over Brazil: from the president's palace to the humblest homes. At the same time, the stability and robustness provided by the industrial materials coexist with the idea of the structure being in a constant state of change. This installation is like an experience, an invitation to coexist, to share, and to explore everything this space has to offer, both individually and collectively.
The Morador is made of people, people from all over the city. People who came there just to see it, and people who are passing by and stop to take a look. Inside it, there are people of all sizes and ages, people who don't know each other but meet. People who know and recognize each other. People who open doors facing one another and look at each other directly. People walking side by side, and people walking in different directions, respecting each other. Inside, there is a form of coexistence, without many words. A shared time that is scarce because it is so attentive and yet so distracted. Outside it, there is one city, inside it, there are many. It is made of the city, made for the city, with the city.
Artist's Testimony:
When I started this project for @bienaldomercosul, the 2021 massacre in Jacarezinho [a neighborhood in the northern zone of Rio de Janeiro] had just happened. Amidst the shock, I watched an interview with @lucianoelias, a psychoanalyst, in which he spoke about the 'desiring population.' Also provoked by the theme proposed by @marcellodantas, curator of the Biennial, I found myself questioning whether the separations that exist in the places from which we dream still exist in the places we dream of. Whether we are really that different in what we desire/dream for ourselves and for others. Later, [the curator] @luisamduarte introduced me to a work by #leonilson, in which he embroidered 'For my neighbor of dreams,' and I thought that recognizing the other, everywhere, as capable of dreaming and desiring as much as I do, is one of art’s greatest tasks.
As the project progressed, I kept encountering various newspaper headlines with 'The resident denounces…,' sometimes denouncing the State, most often for violence, and sometimes denouncing the condominium. According to these headlines, Brazilian society seems divided between these two groups. It makes sense—according to the philosopher @vladimirsafatle, we live under the affect of fear—and our social relationships must be defined by the metaphor of the contract, with which I protect myself from the threat that is the other. Thus, the possibility of citizenship is replaced by the relativization and hierarchy of access to rights, determined by the address where one lives. In other words, the reach of our citizenship is determined by the value listed in the housing contract, or its absence. As the song Haiti by Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso says, 'No one, no one is a citizen.'
One of art's tasks today is to prepare us for new affections, and to do this, we need to start seeing ourselves as equals and not as threats. We need to rediscover the streets, the squares, the culture, and the art, the places made by all of us. [Philosopher Jean-Paul] Sartre couldn't have been more wrong: coexistence doesn’t just expose our weaknesses. The Morador is a public sculpture, but it is also a place and an invitation to abandon what separates us for what brings us together. An invitation not to close the doors of oneself to others, but to open them and let them in.
When I started this project for @bienaldomercosul, the 2021 massacre in Jacarezinho [a neighborhood in the northern zone of Rio de Janeiro] had just happened. Amidst the shock, I watched an interview with @lucianoelias, a psychoanalyst, in which he spoke about the 'desiring population.' Also provoked by the theme proposed by @marcellodantas, curator of the Biennial, I found myself questioning whether the separations that exist in the places from which we dream still exist in the places we dream of. Whether we are really that different in what we desire/dream for ourselves and for others. Later, [the curator] @luisamduarte introduced me to a work by #leonilson, in which he embroidered 'For my neighbor of dreams,' and I thought that recognizing the other, everywhere, as capable of dreaming and desiring as much as I do, is one of art’s greatest tasks.
As the project progressed, I kept encountering various newspaper headlines with 'The resident denounces…,' sometimes denouncing the State, most often for violence, and sometimes denouncing the condominium. According to these headlines, Brazilian society seems divided between these two groups. It makes sense—according to the philosopher @vladimirsafatle, we live under the affect of fear—and our social relationships must be defined by the metaphor of the contract, with which I protect myself from the threat that is the other. Thus, the possibility of citizenship is replaced by the relativization and hierarchy of access to rights, determined by the address where one lives. In other words, the reach of our citizenship is determined by the value listed in the housing contract, or its absence. As the song Haiti by Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso says, 'No one, no one is a citizen.'
One of art's tasks today is to prepare us for new affections, and to do this, we need to start seeing ourselves as equals and not as threats. We need to rediscover the streets, the squares, the culture, and the art, the places made by all of us. [Philosopher Jean-Paul] Sartre couldn't have been more wrong: coexistence doesn’t just expose our weaknesses. The Morador is a public sculpture, but it is also a place and an invitation to abandon what separates us for what brings us together. An invitation not to close the doors of oneself to others, but to open them and let them in.
