Priscila Fernandes (1981, Portugal) is a visual artist whose practice is rooted in an ongoing research into education, play, and the dialectics of work and leisure. She works in a broad range of media: from video installation, painting, photography and publications. She is the co-head of BEAR - Base for Experiment, Art and Research - at ArtEZ, Arnhem. She was a resident artist at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin, IAPSIS Stockholm and at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. Her work has been exhibited widely. Recent exhibitions include "Live Uncertainty", 32nd São Paulo Biennial with the installation "Cuckoo Land and Other Futures"; "The Book of Aesthetic Education of the Modern School" at Foundation Joan Miró, Barcelona; Back to the sandbox: Art and Radical Pedagogy, Reykjavik Art Museum; "Playgrounds", Museum Reina Sofia; "Those bastards in caps ...", TENT, Rotterdam. Priscila is the winner of Brutus Award (AVL Mundo, 2018) and EDP Novos Artistas (2011).
Labour Series - With the introduction in the early 20th century of the first paid holidays, a new economy of leisure was born. Train companies offered discount tickets with significant reductions for the third class, youth hostels appear, campsites, spas and resorts. This allowed a growth of the consumer industry to fulfill such activities: beach accessories, tents, recreational toys such as roller-skates, artificial ski slopes, the suburban swimming pool, the personal trainer, open air cinemas, holiday packages, playgrounds and city parks . It is my belief that the introduction of this culture of leisure into the fabric of our working lives created a new perceptional and sensorial experience. To test this out, I've started sketching a correlation between the developments of leisure activities in the 20th century with the different movements of Abstract Art. In these chronologies that I'm developing, interesting coincidences start to emerge, such as between the American invention of roller skates in the 60's and Abstract Expressionism; or even the first inflatable swimming pools with the Anthropoometries performances by Yves Klein. Through these correlations, I've been setting up situations in which I can engage in some of the leisure activities in order to make large scale paintings, such as by roller-skating, swimming from pool to pool, relaxing on a hammock, or learning how to ski. These situations are then photographed and integrate the ongoing project entitled Labor Series. This project is made possible thanks to Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and Creative Tourism.
Make it Bounce - Duchamp is a frog that has lost the ability to jump. Mondrian is a snake that gives yoga classes. John Cage is a mouse that plays chess and is devoted to mushroom foraging. A yoga studio, a video, and a chronology that relates abstract art to leisure. In this exhibition, mushrooms become musical instruments, the stones on a wall are piano keys, butterflies are born from books. Priscila Fernandes moves in multiple directions. She tells us a story by analogies and uses juxtaposition to create a transitory world where an alternative history is sketched out. Priscila Fernandes plays with modern art myths, entertainment, and the desire to create without restrictions, with a jump that pulls us out of indifference.
Produced with the kind support of Sismógrafo, Stichting Droom en Daad and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
Never Touch the Ground - Filmed in the center of Rotterdam and at Bobbejaanland amusement park, this short film shows the adventurous and brave endeavors of a TV presenter trying to prove a link between the development of leisure and the emergence of Abstract Art. Her theory explains how modern artists, inspired by the exhilarating leisure activities of the 20th century, started a movement into Abstract Art: their aim was to make art that never touched the ground. While tirelessly working on the delivery of such a correlation, absurd as it is, she goes skydiving with paintings, skates through canvases and goes on rollercoasters in order to make drawings. Even if correlation doesn't determine causation, the attempted academic delivery of the TV presenter, somewhat fictional, create the sense that there could not be art without play. Surreal, hilarious and touching, this short film is in itself a carousel of thrilling experiences that will indeed never let you touch the ground. This work is made possible thanks to CBK Rotterdam, Mondriaan Fund, MAAT Museum and Creative Tourism.
Never Touch the Ground - Video still
Never Touch the Ground - Video still
Cuckoo Land - Video still
Cuckoo Land and Other Futures - installation view at TENT. Rotterdam
Cuckoo Land and Other Futures - Leisure can be like a mirror that reflects the way we are expected to perform in professional working environments but also in many aspects of our daily lives. If we look at leisure, we see how much of it is part of an ethics of work and serves to fulfill a desire to be productive, and how many leisure activities are promoting self-discipline and self-improvement. But what if we counter this logic by considering laziness and idleness as subversive acts, as forms of resistance?
This work is made possible thanks to São Paulo Biennial and Mondriaan Fund.
