Now, so far, nothing new, yet everything is different.
(…) João Tabarra’s allegorical situations, cunningly created by the camera, the script and the performers, have become more ambiguous, without losing their capacity for synthesis. One of the factors that helps us, from the outset, to observe this change relates to the installation-based nature of the works.
Each work, whilst exhibiting autonomy through specific vectors, now depends more than ever on the others, giving rise to a network of connections, reversibilities and analogies, which the installation’s layout facilitates.
To read Sofia Nunes’ text, please download it HERE.
An archeology of gestures
(… ) We must therefore recognise that the gestures staged in João Tabarra’s photographs and films possess, in themselves, an artistic character: they are in no way pragmatic, they accomplish nothing, and they render communication itself ineffective.
But this does not mean that they are innocuous, or that they succumb to empty aestheticism. On the contrary, they restore to us something essential that the logic of a society colonised by the media has progressively stripped from us: alongside an expropriation of language, we have also suffered a theft of gestures.
To read António Guerreiro’s text, please download it HERE.
Tôca and João Tabarra would like to thank Dora Carvalho, Paulo Lopes Graça, António Tabarra and Maria Ilieva, Meg Stuart, Billy Woodberry, Fernando Brito, Josy, Susana Carvalho and Eva, Marta Mestre and Guilherme, Eduardo Gomes, Pedro Borges and the team at Cinema Ideal, Ricardo Nascimento, Guilherme Gonçalves, Tiago Mateus, Cláudio Melo and the team at Gamut, Abel Ribeiro Chaves, André Torres and the team at Visual Link Productions, Joana Sousa Monteiro, Bala, Rita and the team at A Taberna da Rua das Flores.
Our team
Project coordination
Andreia Poças
Design
Paula Prates
Camera & digital post-production
André Oliveira
Pedro Sardinha
Installation
Mega
Objectos Sombra
Rui Mendes and João Tabarra