Deprived of human activity, our condition is explored through objects. By being present in our everyday, the objects we own, absorb the characteristics, flaws and feelings of their owners. These things that will probably outlive us, carry so much of our stories captured through our usage of them, that they will end up continuing to tell our individual stories long after we are gone. Dislocated from their functions, as visual elements, when placed within compositions with others, these objects have the potential to represent very human things. I find in those, a flexibility to explore our complexities, whether through the roughness or smoothness of their texture, or the way they sit and interact with each other and the environment around them.
‘Gone with the weather’ sparked from a conversation about how through catastrophes comes a period of renovation and reinvention. We’ve seen it many times through history, natural phenomenons or political conflicts colliding with the order and peace established before them. But we’ve always witnessed a rebirth of society and a chance to reconsider, to develop. I found in this idea something very personal, and relatable to the transition to adulthood. To all the decisions and responsibilities that come with it and how life can easily become a hot mess and a constant loop of overthinking.
This exhibition is set in a space transformed by a storm, deconstructed, somewhere between the inside and the outside, with missing elements. As an event, the storm disrupts the natural flow of routines and demands us to let go, and its thought of, metaphorically, as a moment that brings an end to a certain mindset. An accumulation of matter that eventually implodes. Exploring the narratives beyond the plot, and the situations that compose them, sits an after party of what has previously happened, an imaginary reality. The pieces are made around those situations, exploring all the little things that happen in a moment and the viewer is invited to activate them, and play with the possibilities of continuations.
The show becomes a realisation of the importance of letting go, and a hopeful ode to the inevitable cyclic nature of situations. Finding in destruction an opportunity to re-construct.
Samuel Vilanova (b. 1998, Porto, Portugal; Based in Margate, UK) Samuel Vilanova graduated with a BA (Hons) in Fine art at UCA Canterbury (2020) and co founded the curational project Espaço399 in Porto (2019-2021). Working mainly in painting and sculpture, his practice searches through narratives in imaginary realities the potential of objects to explore human condition.
Previous Group Exhibitions include:
'A Note to Yourself', Porto, Portugal ; 'Fact: Everything I Once Knew', Margate, UK; 'Looking About', Athens, Greece; 'Espaço399',Porto, Portugal; 'Ladders Shadow', Folkestone, UK; 'Grad Award 2020, Crate', Margate, UK; 'Domestic Ecosystems', Porto, Portugal; 'Just Passin' Thru', Folkestone, UK.
