Eduardo Guerra and Miguel Ferrão started their partnership as Musa paradisiaca in 2010 with the aim of focusing on dialogue. At first their efforts mainly took the form of audio pieces available on their website, but they have also made slide works and performative events, and, since 2013, sculptures and films as well. “Audição das flores” (Flowers’ Audition), their first solo show in a commercial gallery, overlapped with “Audição das máquinas” (Machines’ Audition), their first solo show in an institution. The exhibitions proposed to refute the idea that humans and nature are separate entities, presenting two almost animistic scenarios: that of a man-flower and of a man-machine. Also important was the mile and a half separating the two venues; a sort of pilgrimage was required to visit them both.

The two exhibitions presented a series of sculptures made of pitch and painted in oil, belonging to the series “Aumentário” (Augmentarium), 2013–. These replicate an array of easily recognizable but seemingly unrelated everyday objects, such as surfer boots, motherboards, and ropes. More than simply reproducing the objects they resemble, the two groups of sculptures express the idea of flowers on the one hand and machines on the other, but without ever representing either directly. Instead, their attributes are evoked by the traits of each object. But it was the viewer who had the task of activating these implications, as if they were latent until each individual projected onto them his or her own memories and desires and started an intimate conversation with them. One might say that these objects functioned as oracular or totemic icons to which one could return when in need of answers or comfort.

Furthermore, each of the two exhibitions represented a sort of distinct cosmology, united under a particular point of view, perhaps represented by the sculpture of a human head that was included in each show; the flowers were displayed under the watch of Nuna beijando o sol (Nuna Kissing the Sun), while the machines were presided over by O sono do Francisco (The Sleep of Francisco), both 2014. Nuna, whom the artists met on the island of Príncipe, is a kind of witch doctor, an enchanting character with a special relationship with nature. This bust captures a moment when Nuna was basking in the sun, as if her body were engaging in photosynthesis. She represents a new (or perhaps quite old) kind of symbiosis with nature. Francisco, on the other hand, represents a symbiosis with a machine. He spent his life operating a steam engine that powered a whole factory on the outskirts of Lisbon. After it closed, Francisco continued his daily ritual of going to the empty factory to awaken the machine and put it to work. Activating the steam engine gave him a reason to exist and it lived, in turn, only through his dedication. The work would make Francisco sleepy, as though this symbiotic relation with the machine put him in a dormant state like the engine’s own; like all of the sculptures in the exhibition, Francisco is waiting to be woken up.

—Filipa Oliveira