Première image (et Chorégraphie de chaises en zone vague)

Première image

This first image I took when I arrived at Cova do Vapôr creates a cinematic atmosphere, somewhat reminiscent of Takeshi Kitano’s Sonatine¹ (a film in which idle yakuza engage in childish games on a beach). It serves as a starting point for telling a story about a place we don’t know.


Chorégraphie de chaises en zone - Prendre sa place

This series of photographs focuses on chairs in public spaces, from Cova do Vapor (a self-built micro-fishing village located on the point where the Tagus meets the Atlantic Ocean) to certain areas of Lisbon (working-class neighborhoods in the hills of Belem and Ayuda). From Cova to Trafaria (the embarkation point for crossing the Tagus), between the water’s edge and the main road, lies a vague area of makeshift camps and precarious dwellings (Torrão 2 and São Pedro de Trafaria). Along this route, in the images I have taken, these situations involving chairs affirm an idea: taking one’s place somewhere in a world that does not provide one with one, where one can and as one can, but in a precarious yet resilient way. Beyond signifying the occupation of a personal place in public space, there is the collective act of taking one’s place by means of improvised housing. Whether it be with houses built on top of each other in an area reduced by the advance of water, and initially without rights, by the fishermen of Cova themselves, with the slum of Torrão 2, between pine forest and illegal dump, with the precarious constructions of São Pedro de Trafaria, or with the occupation of disparate and rehabilitated housing in the upper districts of Belem, in Lisbon. Collecting these images of chairs is also a way of drawing, with this recurring motif, a whole that connects various places in a vague area and evokes a human presence in relation to a social environment and a landscape.

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