Prelude to a Landscape

About

In each one of us there is an appeal for everything that exists beyond our own existence which is nothing more than the result of “a process of selecting spaces to destroy or to keep in each period of time"1. The contemporary landscape, almost inclusively, is the result of alterations that comes with the human occupation and that, for different reasons, results from adapting the environment to its own establishment and development needs. In this way, landscape can be understood, rather than anything else, as a cultural construction. Its natural condition is directly related to the concept of nature created in different historical and social contexts. The idea of landscape is something that is constructed and rebuilt it is as a mental elaboration that begins with the moment when look at the territory. We can only think about the idea of landscape as a response to our beliefs, knowledge and desires and that define the world in every moment. In doing so, we follow the Kesslerian idea that "landscape is not a reality in itself because it cannot be separated from the gaze of the beholder"2. The concept of landscape from these believes transforms itself into a form of knowledge, a means to understand the environment in which we move, because "not only shows us how the world is, but is also a construction, a composition, a way of seeing it "3. Through this exhibition proposal, entitled "Prelude to a Landscape", it is intended to reflect on the landscape and the territory, how it is interpreted, constructed and reconstructed from an artistic view. From the works of this group of artists, with different approaches to the concept of landscape and the construction of imaginary spaces, we try to clarify which are the main paths that disturb the artists and
which are the working research lines close to architecture, geography , anthropology, sociology, among others.

1 LUCAS, Maria Miguel - Da fábrica que falece na cidade de Lisboa: modelando a paisagem na pós-modernidade. In Teleférico: casi de embarque/operação transbordo. Guimarães: Laboratório das Artes, 2006, p. 22
2 KESSLER, Mathieu – El paisaje y su sombra. Barcelona: S.A. Idea Books, 2000, p. 17
3 NOGUE, Joan - El paisaje como constructo social, en La construcción social del paisaje. Madrid: Ed. Biblioteca Nueva, 2007, pp. 11-12.