MANY WAYS OF MIRRORING is a metaphorical reflection that becomes physical, stimulated by a space in the Parque das Aguas, a room with one wall of mirror and the other of glass overlooking the forest. The mirror is positioned to reflect nature and as a spectator one finds oneself surrounded by greenery, looking at oneself within nature.
These surfaces, mirror and glass, represent two characteristics of water: at the same time, the transparency gives us a glimpse of the depths but the reflective capacity sends us back to the surface, to ourselves and our surroundings. Water represents the world of emotions where we can sink but also play: lightness and depth together.
In the room we find ourselves a bit like Narcissus, who gets rid of his condemnation by mirroring and facing himself, in his hopes and shadows. The mirror allows us to enter into relationship: with ourselves, with each other, with the natural world; we move from the fear of looking at the truth to pure contemplation.
My project adds mirrors to the existing one: three kaleidoscopic reflective structures of three different shapes where the person can see himself multiplied, immersed in the forest and reflected. Adding mirrors means showing more facets, more reflections, more parts of me and the world. One must heal the ego from traumatic fragmentation but be able to mirror oneself in more surfaces to connect with everything else. Being kaleidoscopic: [having constantly changing aspects] ≈ iridescent, phantasmagoric, multiform, mutable, polymorphous, variegated, varied, multicoloured.
In the global society, differences are the cure, so to be able to access all our identities, lights and shadows, and to know ourselves in the set of fragments that we are is empowering.
So I decide to be a cyborg, a hybrid being of flesh and leaves, of scales and emotions. A creature of the future emerging from underground, transparent and reflective in the same way, capable of being a mirror and osmotically letting through what nourishes it. A filter that cleans and is not afraid of dirt because it is able of bringing it back to the earth, which absorbs and renew everything.
In this place I can act, let my nature move me, make art, be art, project myself into space to infuse it with my power.
To become one with the beauty of the forest, inhaling what it gives me and exhaling my breath with its own.
Being art is like being part of the forest.
CALEDOSCOPE
καλός (kalós = beautiful),
ἴδος (eidos = shape, figure),
σκοπεῖν (skopéin = to look, to observe)
Exploring Parque das Aguas, I discovered a precious place to reflect and find refreshment.
This black dragon-scaled construction contains a room inside, that is actually a corridor, erected between transparency and reflection. Glass and mirror.
It is like being in the middle of water, in the world of emotions and the unconscious.
On one side is our reflection, on the other the flourishing, living nature of the park.
Us in the middle as if floating between surface and depth.
We move our gaze from one side to the other, in a continuous exchange between our image and that of the forest.
By doing so, repeatedly, we realise that there, within that space, we can see ourselves together with nature.
We can, for once, look at ourselves immersed in that calm green sea.
Neither distant nor judging nor master, just part of it.
In this place I can add an object, more mirrors to fragment my image and so embrace the different parts of me, my not being whole nor finite, my being multitude. To look in the mirror like Narcissus, but instead of just looking at me, to be able to perceive the life around me, cyclical, and thus be able to heal from petrification.
kaleidoscopic /kaleido'skɔpiko/ adj. (fig.)
[having constantly changing aspects] ≈
iridescent, phantasmagoric, multiform, mutable, polymorphous, variegated, varied, multicoloured.
Looking at oneself immersed in the space of nature, fragmenting one's anthropised ego into a multitude of cyborg possibilities, fluidifies the petrified conception of the Narcissus who only looks at himself, making him in fact a healed Narcissus, a plant that blossoms and grows instead of perishing.
