On the final day of their exhibition at Galeria da Boavista, the artists Veronika Spierenburg e Nuno Barroso invite for a guided tour to “Cemitério das Âncoras”. In addition to the artists’ new film presented on the first floor, the exhibition “Cemitério das Âncoras” reflects on the imaginary of fishing and the sea by presenting historical visual documents and artefacts on the gallery ground floor. This section features a selection of works that have been loaned from museums around the country and includes photographs by Benjamim Pereira and Artur Pastor as well as sculptural remakes produced by the artists in collaboration with local craftsmen. The artist’s thus question “How can historical photographs and objects be read in our days? How is history told and how can we show the transience in relation to the present?” In an attempt to create a cultural remake of the artisanal fishing history, the demise and agency of a cultural and ecological memory of Portugal are set into focus simultaneously.
Veronika Spierenburg is an artist operating in the intersection of sound, body movement, architecture and works with a variety of media and materials. She studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Acamedy in Amsterdam followed by a Master of Fine Arts at the Central Saint Martin’s College in London.
Nuno Barroso studied Environmental Sciences at Universidade Nova de Lisboa and photography at Atelier de Lisboa. He is currently working on the collaborative art project Guarda Rios, a nomad and experimental collective researching the rivers on the Iberian Peninsula.