This publication accompanies the exhibition TSAE: Tesouros Submersos do Antigo Egipto [Submerged Treasures of Ancient Egypt], a solo exhibition by Francisco Tropa, which ran from 7 December 2014 to 22 February 2015, at the Pavilhão Branco, in Lisbon. This volume consists of an archival box of 5 folders corresponding to each of the exhibition sections: Entrée, Partie Submergée, Chambre Violée, Terra Platonica, and Puits. Each of the folders, in turn, contains loose cards with photographic reproductions of the works exhibited. There is also a small booklet with a trilingual text by François Piron (Portuguese, French and English).
“In the collection presented by Francisco Tropa under the enigmatic name STAE (an acronym for ‘Submerged Treasures of Ancient Egypt’) no illustration of the era of the pharaohs can be found and anyone who searches these works for a parable alluding to that era would be mistaken. STAE resembles a collection of disparate, scattered, fragmentary objects that are presented as found rather than constructed elements originating from some vanished site and some indeterminate, immemorial period. STAE is made up of different features, arranged on a map, that effectively evoke the burial rooms of an ancient sanctuary: an underwater place (the ‘underwater section’); a partially plundered underground chamber (‘The Violated Room’); and a place that is intact because it is inaccessible (the ‘Terra Platonica’). Underneath all of this is a shaft, although the maps do not indicate whether it might serve as a passageway to other, more deeply buried, hiding places.”
-François Piron