No place ever vanishes (video installation, 17', 2021)
Developed during the artistic residency programme Residir (Porto/PT, 2021).
The work continues the research developed since 2017 around the site of the former São Vicente de Paulo neighbourhood, addressing questions that intersect ideas of place, emptiness, memory, resistance, and destruction. No place ever vanishes is a video installation composed of three screens and rubble, presented in the final exhibition of RESIDIR, an artistic residency programme hosted by MIRA FORUM in the summer of 2021.
Built from conversations with two generations of former residents of the São Vicente de Paulo neighbourhood and from the collection of official and family archives of the past and future, the work seeks to reveal the personal narratives of displacement behind processes of urban transformation.
No place ever vanishes is a video installation comprising three videos constructed from archival and contemporary images of the former São Vicente de Paulo neighbourhood. Two of the videos are structured around a series of conversations with four women: the first with Ana Santos and Isabel Vieira, and the second with Fátima Cavalheiro and Manuela Ferreira, former residents of the S.V.P. neighbourhood belonging to different age groups and generations of residents.
In these videos, the women recount their memories of the neighbourhood, attempt to reconstruct its spatiality, speak about the demolition process, and express their desire to return. The conversations are accompanied by archival images, photographs and videos provided by the former residents and gathered from public archives, as well as contemporary images of the site that search for traces of the neighbourhood and reveal the visible transformations of the space.
The third video, without sound, brings two video excerpts into confrontation: archival footage of residents launching a São João balloon among the neighbourhood’s low-rise houses, and a promotional video for the new municipal project planned for the site, showing a group of colossal towers levitating. In this confrontation, with a subtle tone of serious humour, the artist places hope and sordidness side by side, using the contrast as a provocation towards public housing policies that destroy communities.
Having previously developed several works around the former S.V.P. neighbourhood, including within the context of her Master’s in Art and Public Space at FBAUP, the artist undertook the residency at a moment when a spontaneous movement of former residents was emerging to claim the right to return to the neighbourhood.
Curatorial text by João Melo, Residir programme coordinator.
VoicesAna Santos, Isabel Vieira, Fátima Cavalheiro e Manuela Ferreira
Direction, editing, and cinematographyFlora Paim
Editing and post-productionLis Paim
Sound editingFlora Paim, Lis Paim e Pedro Emílio Sá
MixingPedro Emílio Sá
