Le premier acte féministe d’une femme, c’est de regarder, de dire “d’accord, on me regarde, mais moi aussi, je regarde.”

— Agnès Varda, Filmer le désir

Rupture reflects upon the double temporality of a wandering woman’s gaze (Flâneuse) in the public space by questioning either a more contemplative gaze or a fleeting one; either looking backwards with an anxious rhythm or an unsuspecting looking forward.

Rupture, is an installation that consists of an aluminum plate, struck vertically only halfway, on which a video with two images is projected. The images seem to mirror each other, but in fact they are two distinct images. In the image on the left we see the forest and each landscape element approaching the camera. In the image on the right, the elements of nature are moving away from the camera. We could say that the one on the left is facing forward, and the one on the right is facing backwards. Both images confront each other according to a disconcerting dichotomy reinforced by the illusion of symmetry: forward and backward; approaching and distancing from something. The movement of both images converge towards the central and vertical axis of the plate, and coincides with the clipping in the stainless-steel screen, as if we could split the time, suspend it for a while, and unfold the double temporality of a woman’s gaze. I recall the words of Agnès Varda, when she says that the first feminine gesture is to look outwards, the act of deciding to look, of deciding that the world is not defined by the way people see women, but also by the way women see the world. Rupture represents one of many ways’ women find themselves in the public space, looking forward and backwards.

2022 Dibujar un paisage, White Lab Gallery, Madrid.

2021 Contorno Aparente, Sala de Exposições, Faculdade de Belas-Artes da Universidade de Lisboa, PT