Eunice Gonçalves Duarte Portugal
I’m a performance artist and researcher. My main research topics are everyday technology (handheld devices) for performance practice, low-tech images and the emotional reception in neuroaesthetics. I work with autobiography material (snapshots and home movies) and historical archives. I graduated in Drama Studies (U.C.Dublin) and am a PhD student in art studies at the University of Coimbra.
I've become an artist while dreaming of a fantastic world of machines. Writing would first win the race to my heart by the hand of James Joyce. I wanted to be in his shoes, and after winning one of the most prestigious grants in Portugal for creative writing, I moved to Dublin to study Theatre at UCD, Ireland. Graduation in Contemporary Theatre, followed by an internship in the Abbey Theatre, helped me understand that theatre was not the medium I wanted to use to express my creativity. After travelling in Europe, I decided to settle in Lisbon, Portugal, to research technology as part of my daily living and its uses in perception, emotion and human connection. In my work, I create visual narratives using handheld devices to capture moving action or gather graphic material from historical or family archives. These visual narratives are then materialized in the form of performance installations, keeping close togetherness of technical research and the affective impact of an image.
Artwork
Fail Better, video performance, 2023
Smother in Tears, performance installation, 2022
This is a Low Tech Movie, performance and digital media, 2016-2019
The Past is Foreign Country, photography and live performance, 2023
History Will Out, photography and drawing, 2017
Magic Lantern 1, magic lantern device, 2017
Magic Lantern 2, magic lantern device, 2017
Projects and exhibitions
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I'm Not Her Film Installation25/11/2022 — 12/02/2023 Eu Não Sou Ela is a film installation designed for seven screens. It aims to rewrite the motherhood narratives by comparing my images as a mother with those of my mother. It was presented at BAG - Banco das Artes Galery, in Leiria, and curated by Orlando Franco. |
BAG - Bank of Arts Gallery, Leiria | Details |
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Smother in Tears14/10/2022 — 17/10/2022 Smother in Tears is a performance installation for the public space about wildfires that bring forward how we think, feel and perceive wildfires, their causes and sociocultural impacts. It was first presented at Henrique Lopes de Mendonça garden bandstand, in Lisbon, for the Temps d'Images Festival. |
Temps d'Images Arts Festival, Lisbon | Details |
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The Past is Foreign Country30/07/2022 — 18/09/2022 Work created in collaboration with Maggie Thompson for Art Lab: Experiments in Collaboration explores how we perceive time and place as vital to creating memories and is the result of a collaboration between two artists separated by geography. The focus of the work is an exploration of time and distance where we chose to use time beyond its... [Read more] |
Crossley Gallery at Dean Clough, Halifax | Details |
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This is a Low Tech Movie01/10/2019 — ongoing This is a Low-Tech Movie – performance-installation for the BeSpecACtive Program, part of the European Spectators Day, promoted and produced by ArtemRede and Creative Europe Program (Lisboa, Sesimbra and Pombal/ Portugal). The performance is brought to life by manipulating images and objects in real-time and filmed with webcams, telling the... [Read more] |
Lisbon, Sesimbra and Pombal | Details |
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I'm Not Her (Eu Não Sou Ela)01/03/2019 — ongoing Short Documentary made with found footage from stock videos websites. The film builds up a narrative of a woman that gets confronted with the image of her mother before becoming a mother. Old family videos from her mother make her question the maternity loop where women get imprisoned in the same gestures, tasks, and behaviours. |
Women's Voices Now Film Festival (California, USA), Oaxaca Film Festival (Oaxaca, Mexico), Hellius S | Details |