Seaweeds

Project Tools Project Info
This work is all composed with seaweeds caught in Vila Chã,
a little fishermen beach in the North of Portugal.
The seaweeds were digitalized with a normal and very cheap scanner
with the lid open into a dark room.
It has no digital manipulation but some simple cleaning on
the black background.

Casualness made me. It also made all these images that came from the sea and from its will. The simple act (going to the beach to collect little seashells) was the call to all the other beings that live there or die at our feet. Those beings that have tried to give us a beginning by desiring to possess eyes (tiny...). But let me explain: One day I thought that I am what I am because the seaweeds I photograph today have wanted me to be this way, a watcher. Just because they have wanted to be felt by the light that once existed there. And they have created little cells, different from all the other ones that they were, those that could know light from darkness. Then, millions of years after, they have desired to find out where it was (the light, I mean) and they looked for it. I believe that they have begun seeing. I believe that they have started being us. Today I see myself wondering how curious the fact is that I want to produce images of those primary observant beings, so that they become nourishment to my eyes, which, in turn, stubbornly continue to bathe in the same salted water. Today I wonder how curious it is the fact that we still continue, after so many millions of years, desperately looking for a light.

Translation: Alexandra Negrier


 
A casualidade me fez. E fez também estas imagens que vieram do  mar e da vontade dele. O acto simples (à praia apanhar conchinhas!) chamou outros seres  que lá vivem ou morrem a nossos pés. Esses que nos quiseram  começar querendo ter olhos (pequeninos...). Me explico: Um dia pensei que sou porque as algas que hoje fotografo me quiseram assim, olhador. Porque se quiseram sentir pela luz  que lá estava. E criaram pequenas células, diferentes das outras todas  que eram, que podiam saber a luz e a escuridão. Depois, milhões de  anos depois, quiseram saber onde ela estava (a luz) e procuraram-na.  Acredito que começaram a ver. Acredito que começaram a ser nós. Hoje, dou-me a pensar como é curioso o facto de querer produzir  imagens desses primeiros seres olhadores, para que sejam alimento  dos meus olhos que continuam teimosamente banhados na mesma  água salgada. Hoje, dou comigo a pensar como é curioso o facto de continuarmos,  depois de tantos milhões de anos, desesperadamente à procura de  uma luz.

Paulo Gaspar Ferreira
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