That's why we see in his work as a diverse and disparate set of materials, as with jellyfish, which use neon?
SP: Yes, that's right. It serves to tell a story. Because I am far away, how can I design Madeira? the one I've never had, or have already lost. The most important exhibition I did had recently been rebuilt and the Gulbenkian Foundation, called desert islands. It is someone who is in Porto and has a dream about the islands. The Cooperative Tree that sent me the invitation at the time told me I had three rooms. And I realized I had three islands. The neon you are talking about and a lot of people liked are the living waters as we call it in Madeira, the jellyfish. Much of my work, are Atlantic memories without being literal, I do not literally represent the island.
The island influences you always? As with the living water?
SP: The jellyfish is an installation is playing an aquarium that is all covered in glass and neon have those shapes, are seven and are accompanied by special music by Jorge Lima Barreto, called Neon Neon, he unfortunately passed away about a month. When I say that my repertoire is Atlantic island is, above all the imagination of a cliff overlooking the sea. I am an artist with Antonio Aragao and others founded the Portuguese experimental poetry, and this man is easy forgotten, for reasons that people know. Well, he established a most important movement of the twentieth century and learned a lot from him.
The jellyfish are a very powerful impact of a water memory. It is an installation that needs a lot of space and music and maybe that's why people say it is very contemplative. That is, one enters and feels well. I do not figurative. I have an ocean repertoire. What you see is not imitation of objects in nature. They are intellectual constructs of those memories. What interests me in my work, as music does carries sensations, emotions and repertoires that a person has already had saved and when they opens this box says: I remember this! It is not literal. I am an artist deeply islander, without ever speaking about it
And the deserted islands? Tell us a little about them?
SP: One of the rooms was the installation of which I spoke, the other was made with radiography painted boxes, animated with light, and twelve are now part of the Serralves collection. The third room was a collage of poems. The works are there. An artist likes to be shown to the public when there is goodwill.
These works are on the internet. I found that there is plenty of information.
SP: No, you cannot put everything on the internet. There must be a certain mystery. There are works that converted to the Internet, as is the case of slides, such digital work are of poor quality. This work has to be presented as such.
You see then the art scene?
SP: I and a group of artists, including Antonio Dantas, Celeste Sequeira and Catherine Pestana, we made a proposal eight years ago, paying everything, producing and paying to display a phenomenon that is "What is what". The only official support we had were rooms of the museum of contemporary art and no more. We brought the best we could. There came a moment that was not affordable, because the artists as hard as he tries, cannot replace the role, powers and resources available to the institutions of the state. What I see is very little. They say there is no money, but to be stopped, also has no cost? The people of Madeira respond to this type of action? This is a good example; lonarte is a good project, small, carefully nurtured and makes culture available. The people of Madeira are not lower or no less interest in culture in relation to other. You must create conditions because they'll come, as others do and all audiences. I am sorry I need to say this, because if they were good things happening, this speech was unnecessary.
