AiR 2020 :: Zona Fronteiriça :: Camila Lobos Díaz

Metaphorically, ggeopolitical boundaries (borders) are cultural, social and political demarcation lines in which we only exist in a dichotomy, either in or out. In this context, it seems urgent to cultivate and practice a sense of belonging; we walk, we move, we migrate....

Are our roots confined to the place where we are born? Bodies are real, while nations are conventions, arbitrary fictional separation created through fictional lines on continents, seas, bodies.

Zona Fronteiriça is an exercise of resistance, a coral space, intimate yet collective; we walk, we move, we migrate, we land, but we never quite arrive. The project was made possible through the support of each of the participants across the various stages of it; onces, conversations, interviews, walks. Thank you so much for building this borderland, where notwithstanding our differences we come together, we touch, we cohabit, we coexist.

Thank you Nida, Popi, Farhana, Thamina, Imran, Ali, Taufzil, Rabindra, Balde, Carlos, Sadja, Milan, Mostafa, Sufia, Ganesh, Rabin, Lakshmi, Ismail, Shabbbir, Demba, Mamadou, Shah, Wajeha, Jorge."

Camila Lobos Díaz, December 2020.

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Openning on December 10th, Zona Fronteiriça - the final exhibition of the artistic residency of Camila Lobos Díaz, Chilean artist selected for the AiR Carpintarias Visual Arts residency, with the support of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

This residency, happening for the third consecutive year, aims to bring the multicultural community near Carpintarias closer to the Cultural Center and contemporary art. As a leitmotiv lies the idea and reflection about the concept of community. What is a ''community'' and how is it built; how can we build ''community'' through contemporary art?

Migration and the idea of community are central themes in the artist's practice. Her work aims to make the socio-political context visible, exploring the relationship between power and visibility and how art reveals these elements and dynamics that are beyond our reach. The artist approaches interactions between space and human relations - the micropolitics. She deepens the idea of context as symbolic space, where projects are not only installed, but also emerge from there. In this residency she developed an investigation about the idea of belonging in these communities.

Zona Fronteiriça is an audiovisual installation resulting from the exercise of recompilation of stories that make up the community around the project.