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Bring things to life

This work was carried out during the Advanced Projects discipline "Space, Time and Form", guided by professor Dr. Tânia Bloomfield, from the Visual Arts course at the Federal University of Paraná. For approximately one year, from September 2021 to May 2022, work was carried out that was related to the environment of the house, referring to the proposal "Casa (Vi)vida: a phenomenology of the house as a geographic place", which was divided into three modules : module 1 - “I, who live here”; module 2 - “Lived space”; and module 3 - “Time lived”. The work with/in the space of the house took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we were forced into social isolation and spent much more time inside the house.

Bringing things to life developed during module 1 "I, who live here", in the exercise "The body in the body of the house". In this work proposal, the instruction given by professor Dr. Tânia Bloomfield was: 

For this essay, think of your body as a kind of integral part of the architecture of the house, as if it were an organ, an appendage. Adapt it, shape it, mimic it to walls, corners, gaps, floors, windows, furniture, passages, in the same room or in different rooms. (BLOOMFIELD, 2021)

Based on the idea of incorporating myself into the space, being part of the house, I developed three photographs, in which parts of my body started to present a horizontal position in relation to the objects in the house. This idea of the body as part of the house, as a kind of organ, is related to the operational concept coexistin which I assume that it is necessary to perceive oneself with the surrounding elements and not perceive through something. This understanding comes from contact with anthropologist Tim Ingold who argues that we need to blend into the environment, instead of just perceiving them as beings apart from it. (INGOLD, 2015). Space is not constituted merely by what surrounds us, but is the result of relationships:

Space, by this understanding, is not the matter that summarizes relationships, much less the substance that conditions the existence of a movement, but an interactive result, a switching inscribed in a striking temporality of contact between units of life that are in movement. . (INGOLD, 2015, p.64)

The perspective with can assume characteristics of topophilia and/or topophobia, in which the concept of topophilia refers to affinity relationships in spaces that generate good sensations (TUAN, 1980), and the concept of topophobia implies the opposite. By positioning myself com space, both relationships can coexist. Furthermore, the body incorporated into the house takes on another sensorial perspective, so that I perceive com the house and not through it. This is the central idea of the photographs developed, which allowed me to bring things to life. Coexistencialize.

If I were the clay filter in my kitchen, I would pay attention to how the water passes through my candle, making it more drinkable. I would pay attention to every human being who came to get some water, their hands, their glasses, their bodies. I would reflect on the water that does not inhabit the rivers, but inhabits me. I would pay attention to the rain, which falls into the river and ends up inside me. I would pay attention to my body made of clay, fresh and natural like the earthen floor. I would pay attention to how each drop of water stops being full of chlorine and becomes more alive, more water. If I were the clay filter in my kitchen, I would definitely think about why humans don't thank me for filtering the water that keeps them alive.

Glass

Thallyta Piovezan, digital photography. 2021.

If I were the clothes rack in my room, I would pay attention to how each piece of clothing, each bag hangs on me, some heavier, others as light as the wind. I would pay attention to my body made of wood: where do I come from? I would reflect on the wood that was killed to become me. I would think about how I would like not to carry death within me. I would pay attention to human hands and how they touch my wooden body, without ever noticing me.

Clothes rack

Thallyta Piovezan, digital photography. 2021.

If I were the pillow on my bed, I would pay attention to the head that rests on me every night, to the hair that touches my body. I would think about how my head sometimes rests less than I'm used to and how I lie in bed, just watching the ceiling. I would pay attention to the flies flying, the light in my face all day long. I would reflect on where I came from and how I will die. Discarded in a landfill? Will they throw me there to die or will they kill me first? Would I have another possibility of existence, maybe I would be recycled? I'm afraid of humans.

Pillow

Thallyta Piovezan, digital photography. 2021.

Other work developed:

All photographs on the pages below are by Thallyta Piovezan, 2021-2022

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Module 1: I, who live here - Personal blind portrait

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Module 1: I, who live here - Blind portrait of Heloisa Panuci

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Module 1: I, who live here - Embodied Literature

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Module 2: Living space - 5 collections of objects

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Module 3: Lived time - Years teach what days do not know

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