This publication comes a year after the exhibition that took place during my residency in Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin). At the time, I published a volume that accompanied the exhibition, entitled “plateaus singers merge languages together/os cantores dos plan- altos fundem linguagens”. Together, these two publications (the former and the current one) are an extension of the same topic — space. And yet they follow very different directions because they explore the topic to the point of losing it in the web of relationships set up with other subtopics. This can naturally be explained by the time ellapsed since the exhibition, but also by the need to approach every work (in this case, this publication) as an opportunity for a (new) reflection and to integrate (as much as possible) the circumstances of the production process.

In a way, this material is a second display, where the space of exhibition and the space of presentation (and documentation) are merged into one, thus becoming the same. Although I don’t develop the intersection of these spaces here, it is a relevant question in my artistic trajectory, since the book has often become “the final destination” for my work. In other words, the book is not merely the space that comes after the space of exhibition and guarantees its existence in time, but it is often the first and only space where I present my work.

Considering the reflection on space, this topic will now be addressed through the intersection of the “psychological/mental space”, the “physical space” and the “space of representation” (art). Consequently, “properties” will be the main subtopic. The relationship between these spaces is essentially metaphorical, as is the relationship between them and the properties, or among the properties themselves.

During my residency — between December 2012 and November 2013 —I travelled between Berlin (Germany), Oporto and Lisbon (Portugal), Agadir (Morocco) and Rügen (Germany). For me, each chance of mobility (a temporary or permanent change in space) is, and has always been, an opportunity for study. It is as if the journey (the act of travelling) and the stay in another space had become, at a certain point, the central motive for the work. In a way, what made me look at mobility as a fundamental necessity was the distance gained from the original point of departure — the known, familiar space. The familiarity with this space is such that it inhibits the adaptive effort from the outset, and, therefore, the effort of communication. Distance allows you to expand perception and to recognize differences/diversities. The same happens when we return to the familiar/original space, due to the mutual changes that have taken place: in the space that was left behind (and later found) and in the individual who has moved-crossed-travelled around.

The decision to travel to Agadir — from the Moroccan coast to the nearby desert — was governed by an impulse towards a horizontal plane, towards the flatness that has no properties. And it was as if that impulse came from a “mental/psychological space” which demanded (and was drawn to) that “physical space”. Curiously enough, this happened in parallel with an increase in abstraction in the work I had been producing. In other words, the journey occasioned the encounter (actually, the contrast) between these two spaces (“psychological/mental” and “physical space”) and a third one: the “representation space”, art.

When later thinking about this mutual attraction (or coincidence of spaces), I realized that at the bottom of it — or at its limit — was the question of the absence of properties. It’s not really an absence tout court, evidently, but a certain resistance to the understanding or the conscious perception of properties in general. It is only possible to understand this limit (the meeting of the three spaces) in the abstract because only then do we manage to overlook properties (by not being aware of them). It is something merely abstract — and yet, abstraction in itself is already a property. So, the limit to which I refer (and which is only perceived at the level of ideas, of pure abstraction) became relevant (as a point of arrival) for what happened next: from then on, properties began to gain importance and to become an issue themselves, probably because my resistance to their conscious perception no longer so strong.

Along this journey, and along the other ones I made during the residency, I began to pay more and more attention to the materials, because they can be carried and they can work as memory reservoirs. And yet we sometimes carry nothing but the materials’ memory and properties. The fact that I paid attention to the materials (to the particular and objectual aspects of the journey) made me also look at myself carefully, as a traveller (at my physicality and inner space), and at the context that surrounded me (the outer space).

I then assumed that the strangeness of travelling (of mobility), which results from creating distances, recognizing differences/diversities and encouraging communication, enhances the recognition of properties. Therefore, the journey was always considered alongside the narrative — and even as a condition for it. In general, this publication presents the experience of narrating a set of events that reveal certain properties, which were made aware in a given period of time and in designated areas. Thus, it offers a step forward between abstraction — the unawareness of properties — and figuration — the awareness of properties.

If we take the limit for something abstract, the same (I believe) will apply to the other opposite limit — the omnipresence of properties. We can only be aware of a certain amount of properties, but I do not intend to explore more properties than necessary here. Regarding the necessary ones, it was never about listing them or making use of a predetermined grouping system to sort them out — if a system indeed stands out, it is due to intuition. Nor is this about defending an underlying aesthetic that would eliminate abstraction through figuration. The aesthetic I follow is determined by the mutual interference of different circumstances — not only of my personal and artistic development, but also of the context(s) of which I am part of. My intention is simply to let an aesthetic take form — one that will make the properties establish a relation between themselves, answering the needs of the narrative.

Therefore, in this publication the textual and the visual components are intertwined in a joint effort to build a narrative. In their complementarity and friction, both components make properties stand out; i.e. the relationship established between the properties determines the ones that should appear. They are relational properties, turning narrative into a web of relationships.

The textual component consists of a set of fictional dialogues, resulting from moments shared with artists from the community formed during the residency at Bethanien; a text/parable entitled “Surface Miners”, written after my experience of returning to the city of Oporto and watching (in amazement) the movements between the pawn shops, the jewellers and the junkyards; a text/parable entitled “Laughter”, which was also somehow written as an exercise to interrupt the usual mental flux, in order to solve a problem whose answer is far from being clear or univocal (hence, the open text and its med- itative tone); and, an essay by Chus Martínez, who kindly accepted the invitation to write about my work.

As for the visual component, it consists of, on the one hand, a set of reliefs, made with plaster and (waste) foam collected mainly in the coastal geographies of Rügen, Agadir, Essaouira and Oporto; and, on the other, a set of unfinished works brought from the atelier-studio in Bethanien, which were later finished in Oporto. They were made with heterogeneous materials collected and carried between places, and later transformed.

In the reliefs, it is possible to recognize human body joints. They are representations of strength, of the same driving force necessary for travelling (and for mobility in general), as well as for performing the work. Through them, work in general and artistic work in particular are questioned. These reliefs are part of the narrative, mirroring it, in the sense that the intention is to extract what is relevant — a minimal, discrete figuration. The works are flower sculptures. The flowers result from the use of oils (mainly argan oil, combined with other oils with different properties, namely with intense odours) that carry an ancient memory of their protective use. I want- ed to highlight this fat matter as a relatively protective layer, which both protects and attracts. However, oils cannot be perceived. They are mixed with materials that contain them. The circle sums up the flower figure — the convergence towards the centre of an outer experience and towards its inner assimilation. Coincidently, there are four sculptures that sum up the experience in four different destinations: Berlin, Essaouira/Agadir, Rügen and Oporto.

Considering the three spaces mentioned, we could say that the impulse represented by this publication brings together those very same converging spaces again: the “psychological/mental space”, the “physical space” and the “space of representation” (art). Thus, flatness acquires waves, nuances, irregularities, subtle heights in the reliefs, just like it acquires a centre in the flowers.

Finally, this essay doesn’t intend to be explanatory but introductory. For that reason, I hope it can be a relief in itself (with a minimal, discreet figuration) which, along with the other elements in this publication, may present itself as a proposal and an invitation, so that in it (and through it) the relations between properties may be discovered and acknowledged.