Mappa Mundi | 2023
at CUF, Barreiro, Portugal
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‘Mappa Mundi’
Dimensional drawing made one afternoon in the old Tinco paint factory, Barreiro, Portugal. Mappa Mundi evolved in collaboration with all kinds of marks, debris and dirt caused by decades of decline and previous activity. Ovals of light on the floor and the wall (created by the sun shining through holes in the tin roof) continually moved their positions, which meant it was necessarily time-driven and characterised by rapid, spontaneous moves.
Despite being of scale, Mappa Mundi has a vulnerability to it. Perhaps this is due to the dilapidated environment and the unreasonable haste in which ‘space’ became ‘place’; the battle to declare itself as ‘something, somewhere‘ in the time available. This is added to by the fact that now it faces an inevitable downturn in its fortunes because the pigeons have returned to what is a derelict building in an abandoned industrial area.
INFO
Materials: white chalk, charcoal, red, orange and blue oil sticks plot out lines across the factory floor and up the left hand wall. Charcoal drawings on the back wall and on the painted white and red planes / blocks. The sun – which shone through holes in the tin roof, projecting bright spots of light on the floor and wall (these moved as I worked – one slid along the orange and red line that ran towards the left hand wall. The other gradually crept up the wall on the left hand side). Dimensions: approx 25 metres x 20 metres x 15 metres.
‘Mappa Mundi’ PADA Studios- made off-site in the abandoned Tinco paint factory, on the CUF Industrial Park, Barreiro, Portugal.‘Mappa Mundi PADA Studios- made off-site in the abandoned Tinco paint factory, on the CUF Industrial Park, Barreiro, Portugal.
‘Mappa Mundi’ at PADA Studios