The Possibility of an Island

The Possibility of an Island, Terceira Pessoa and Darling Desperados. 29/11 – 02/12.

The Possibility of an Island is an exhibition that invites the audience to interact with and reflect upon a series of works that are inspired by the idea of the artist’s absence. 

Taking place simultaneously in Lisbon, Castelo Branco and Stockholm, each artist shared not works of art, but instructions for how to create it. These instructions were interpreted by the local teams and must be completed by the audience, creating the exhibition in real-time.

As they move through the space, the viewer is invited to think of each work as an ‘island of activity’, which will appear and then disappear again at their will. In acknowledging their position of power in this process, they are asked to consider if the purpose of art is simply for an audience to see an object, of if it is that the object is exposed to the audience?

SWEDEN

Bertha’s Bag – What’s in Yours?, Tinna Joné
The Explorer’s Diary, Franco Velo
Dog Days, Valentin Malmgren and Dolgion Ganbayar
Love Makes Life Less Painful, Katta Pålsson, Emma Creed and Ulrika Malmgren

PORTUGAL
The Blue Line, Nuno Leão;
Duck to Island, João Dias;
Vem e torna os meus sonhos frustrados em palavras de algodão, Inês Nêves;
Sem título (sem data), sem artista, sem formato, sem medida, Inês Nêves;
Then Possibility of an Island, Ana Gil;
Le Vernissage, Óscar Silva 

Terceira Pessoa and Darling Desperados: The Partnership

The Possibility of an Island is the result of a collaboration between Terceira Pessoa from Castelo Branco and Darling Desperados from Stockholm.

Terceira Pessoa develops artistic projects using an interdisciplinary approach that brings together a diverse range of professionals. Their work aims to cater to audiences regardless of age or socio-cultural background and seeks to bring communities closer together through promoting cultural exchange between local tradition and contemporary modes of expression.

Founded by Ulrika Malmgren and Katta Pålsson in 1987, Darling Desperados works at the intersection of the performing arts (theatre, workshops and seminars) and digital media (film, XR and 360° film). They work to find ways to integrate new technology into performances with live actors and installations, and they believe that their art must be environmentally sustainable in its creation, an idea that is central to their development as a company.

Both artistic collectives have been deeply interested in the crossover of analog and digital media and have been working with this topic through different performances and installations over the past three years. The Possibility of an Island was born from this shared interest and became an opportunity for Terceira Pessoa and Darling Desperados to look deeper into the contrast between the physicality of the working with the body (the analog) and the absence of that physicality (the virtual).

The artists were challenged to create something that encourages physicality or presence in a given moment in time, and the desire to work together to build something, even in the team’s absence.

The Artists

Stockholm:

Tinna Joné is an Assistant Professor in Documentary Storytelling at Stockholm University of the Arts. She researches and creates art surrounding the topic of reality in a digital media langscape, exploring how new technology can support development towards more equal representation.

Franco Veloz is an artist from Argentina now based in Sweden. He works with film, animation and illustration, exploring the boundaries between analog and digital. He creates fantastic worlds where he investigates themes such as memory, power and exposure.

Valentin Malmgren is a graduate of the Royal Art Institute, Sweden. Valentin has an interest in the purposeful development of certain technologies, and the fear vs fetish dynamic that exists in the way we interact with those technologies. His direction of work involves combining and exploring the potential of different softwares, and collaging digital assets to produce eerie, familiar-yet-uncanny worlds. These worlds are evocative of the present but also nod towards a complex near-future.

Emma Creed is a Creative Producer working in the intersection of Film and New Media. As an artist she is interested in exploring both what has alienated people to different forms of art and also encouraged to engage them with it. She believes that XR has the possibility to play with the reality of how people interact with the environments around them, exploring historical and current narratives to reconnect alienated audiences with art by literally bringing it to them.

Ulrika Malmgren is an Actor, Artist, Director and Producer. Since 2022 she has been an Associate Professor for BA and MA students at Stockholm University of the Arts. Ulrika has designed many of the most popular and highly qualified courses and collaborations at the university, including the International Masters Program in New Media and in Acting.

Katta Pålsson is an Actor, Artist, Director and Producer. She has been working as a producer at Unga Klara (Sweden’s theatre company with a national assignment for young audiences) and Cirkus Cirkör (the largest circus company in Scandinavia). She has a MA in Film/Media and New Digital Platforms.

Lisbon:

Ana Gil has a degree in Theatre from the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema, Lisbon. She is co-artistic director of Terceira Pessoa, which she co-founded with Nuno Leão in 2012. Through this organisation she has directed creative projects in theatre and interdisciplinary fields, education, audience development and programming. She is also Professor of Dramatic Expression on the Basic Education course at Escola Superior de Educação, Castelo Branco.

Óscar Silva is the artistic director of Terceira Pessoa, where he has worked since 2015, and founder of the collective Mr João. He works mainly in the broad field of theatre and performance as a creator, director and actor. He has a degree in theatre and a master’s degree in performance practices. He studied at ESTC (PT), ECA-USP (BR), UAL-CSM (UK) and École des Maîtres (EU). Between 2010 and 2014 he lived and worked in São Paulo, and between 2014 and 2017 in London.

Nuno Leão was born in Alcains. A graduate in Theatre from Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema in Lisbon, he is co-artistic director of Terceira Pessoa, which he co-founded in 2012. Through this organisation he has directed creative projects in theatre and interdisciplinary fields, education, audience development and programming. Since 2019, he has been Adjunct Professor in Performance at Higher School of Theater and Cinema of the Polytechnic Institute of Lisbon. His interests lie in the hybrid potential of artistic languages as spaces for poetic work.

João Dias is an artist focusing on the development of visual languages that explore relations between sculpture, architecture and – above all – archaeology practices. In order to do so, he uses thinking strategies derived from painting and drawing in order to explore contemporary mediums and industrial materials, reflecting on the limits of plastic language and Tradition. His artistic practice – ever more oriented towards large-scale sculpture and Public Art – while also assuming the role of Artistic Director for new projects and curatorial initiatives.

Inês Nêves is a transdisciplinary artist whose work crosses visual arts, creative writing, and performance. Till this date, she has participated in exhibitions, performances, and residencies in Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Estonia. She has presented her work in talks, lectures, educational activities, international conferences and publications, and is a member of the KAIRÓS World Network of Young Researchers. In 2022, she was awarded the Painting Prize at the Young Creators National Showcase. In parallel, she has co-created and integrated curatorial and cultural programming collective projects.

At at Rua das Gaivotas 6 (Lisbon), Fábrica da Criatividade (Castelo Branco) and Galleri Artsight (Stockholm)