FAROL
January 12th - February 12th, 2020
Solo Show | Instituto Açoriano de Cultura
On the lower space, the exhibition featured Farol, a 3 channel video installation accompanied by two sound pieces compiled from interviews with António Maurício. Loraf, an HD video presented on the ground floor, proposes a fiction based on the idea of an absolute and utopian isolation from the world beyond the island.
Located at the southwest end of Culatra Island, Farol is a village in the Algarve (south of Portugal), that never has more than 20 inhabitants living there permanently. Urban development started in the 1950’s around the Santa Maria Lighthouse, which was built in 1851 and remains active. In 1987, this territory was integrated into the Ria Formosa Natural Park conceived with the “conservation of the lagoon system, namely its flora and fauna, including migratory species, and their habitats as its main purpose”.
The local economy is entirely dependent on tourism. The lack of infrastructure to support this activity outside the beach season is largely responsible for the sharp seasonality of visits to the island: in summer the number of inhabited houses increases tenfold. Since property can only belong to the state, rental is illegal. Titles of usufruct for any of the existing lots are passed on from parents to children and cannot be sold. Illegal constructions, most of which were built after the April 25th revolution in 1974, have been systematically demolished and with removal of any remaining buildings planned for the near future.
This continuity and the isolation that is felt most of the year, has given rise to a set of relationships and affinities that contribute to the construction of an identity of its own in a very specific territory.
Interventions, claims and experiences are materialised in the urban landscape. DIY solutions to everyday problems span generations while retaining their original relevance, and actions are taken that often question the limits of codes of close coexistence, legality, and public and private space.
