Galeria Municipal do PortoGaleria Municipal do Porto

Compulsive Desires
25.03–27.05.2023

Compulsive Desires — On Lithium Extraction and Rebellious Mountains
addresses the entanglement between extractivism and exhaustion, productivity and burn-out, across scales. Curated by Marina Otero Verzier, the exhibition takes as its starting point the ongoing lithium extraction plans in the North of Portugal and the struggles sustained by local communities for their lives and rights. Battles that emphasize how, in what has been described as "green colonialism", the development of the "renewable energy futures", too often involves the dispossession of communities and degradation of ecosystems.
 
Whereas the mining industry — and capitalism cravings — subjugates and exploits the mountain and its inhabitants treating them as resources to be extracted, the violence is turned into a force for survival for these communities through collective infrastructures and embodied rituals. If mining results in social, ecological, and mental breakdown, these practices, alongside artistic expressions, break social order to create counter worlds merging the individual and the collective, the ancestral realm and future generations, the human and more-than-human, and unleashing alternative understanding of energy.
 
With
Amável Antão, Anastasia Kubrak, Carlos Irijalba, Giuliana Rosso, Grupo de Investigação Territorial (Antonio del Giudice, Godofredo Enes Pereira, Jacob Bolton, Mingxin Li, Tiago Patatas), Heitor Cramez, Isidro Rodrigues, Jonas Staal & Radha D’Souza, Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, Lara Almarcegui, Leanne Wijnsma, Godofredo Enes Pereira/Lithium Triangle Studio + Nicholas Jaar, Maarten Vanden Eynde & Edmond Musasa, Medios Libres con la Gira Zapatista, Naomi Rincón Gallardo, Natalia de la Rubia Kozlowska, Orlando Vieira Francisco, Povo de Covas do Barroso & Paulo Carneiro, Susana Caló, Susana Soares Pinto, Tanguy Pitavy, Tomás Saraceno & Aerocene Foundation.

Graphic Design por Joana Pestana
Exhibition design by D_P_S (Diogo Passarinho, Gonçalo Reynolds)
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March 25th, at 5pm

Compulsive Desires - Talk with Cheila Colaço Rodrigues, G.I.T. — Grupo de Investigação Territorial and Marina Otero Verzier

The opening day included a first screening of the film Montanha Invertida, present in the exhibition, followed by an open debate on the effects of the mining projects planned for Northern Portugal. 
 
Moderated by curator Marina Otero Verzier, featured Cheila Colaço Rodrigues, representing the association XR and Minas Não and the collective G.I.T. - Grupo de Investigação Territorial, responsible for the production of the film.
 
 
 
Free entry.

Poet and intersectional activist, Cheila Colaço Rodrigues integrates the association Extinction Rebellion Portugal XR and Minas Não. She has been developing a work of mediation and empowerment of communities for self-management, in associations such as Teatro Comunitário and Cantares do Gerês.
 
The Grupo de Investigação Territorial (G.I.T.) [Territorial Investigation Group] is formed by architects and researchers who study and demonstrate the implications of the lithium extraction plans underway in northern Portugal and which directly affect the territory of Covas do Barroso and the communities living there. The collective is formed by Antonio del Giudice, Godofredo Enes Pereira, Jacob Bolton, Mingxin Li and Tiago Patatas.

Image: Dinis Santos
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March 25th, at 7pm

Psych Op Pump

The installation Psych Op Pump, created by artist, composer and director Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, transforms the gallery space into an inverted mountain, creating an illusion of a bottomless lake in a high toxicity environment. 
 
On the opening day the piece was activated through the performance of poet and performer Igor Borovsky, with whom Saldanha has been collaborating since 2014.
Free entry.

On the border between sound and visual arts, Jonathan Uliel Saldanha investigates the areas of intersection between artistic territories, exploring tensions between the synthetic and the landscape. His work has been presented in various programming contexts such as Centro Cultural de Belém, Palais de Tokyo, Culturgest and Teatro Municipal do Porto, or festivals such as Unsound, Le Guess Who?, Sónar or Primavera Sound.
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March 25th, starting from 10am

Compulsive Desires - Opening

 
 

April 1 and May 6, at 4pm

Guided tours of the exhibition

The Galeria Municipal do Porto carries out a guided tour of the exhibitions on the first Saturday of each month.
Free entry.

May 7, at 5pm

Desejos Compulsivos - Talk with Leanne Wijnsma, Anastasia Kubrak e Marina Otero Verzier

From the compulsive act of extraction, to the history of therapeutic processes and well-being, Leanne Wijnsma and Anastasia Kubrak will join together in a conversation moderated by curator Marina Otero Verzier, for a moment of reflection and sharing on the emergence of an ecological and collective consciousness, focusing on artistic practice as a work of insistence and obsession.
Free entry.

The talk will take place in English.

Leanne Wijnsma’s work uses instinct as a method, exploring the relationship between freedom and technology through smell design and subterranean explorations. The immersive nature of their work reflects on the human condition in the 21st century, investigating human awareness and the impact of new technologies on individual and collective behaviour. Wijnsma is interested in addressing the instinctual within us by creating experiences for our senses, trusting that it evokes an inherent truth and freedom of mind through action.

Anastasia Kubrak is a designer and researcher, working in the fields of media and material cultures. She is currently a PhD researcher at Critical Media Lab at the Basel Academy of Art and Design and University of Arts Linz. She teaches at the Design Academy Eindhoven in MA Social Design and MA Information Design. Between 2018 and 2021, she has been a researcher at Het Nieuwe Instituut, where she co-curated exhibition ‘Lithium' (2020) and edited publication 'Lithium: States of Exhaustion' (2021) together with Francisco Diaz and Marina Otero Verzier. She holds a Master’s in Visual Strategies from Sandberg Instituut.

Compulsive Desires

Book launch: Lítio - Estados de Exaustão

Next Friday is the launch of Lítio - Estados de Exaustão, a co-published book between GMP and Dafne Editora, resulting from the exhibition 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝗹𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗿𝗲𝘀 — 𝗢𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘂𝗺 𝗘𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝗲𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗠𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀, presented on the begining, presented earlier this year.
 
The presentation will be attended by Marina Otero Verzier and Godofredo Enes Pereira and will take place at 6.30pm in the Ferreira da Silva Laboratory of the Natural History and Science Museum of the University of Porto (Cordoaria).
 Admission is free.

Museu de História Natural e da Ciência da U.P.
(Edifício Histórico da Reitoria, ao Jardim da Cordoaria)
Campo dos Mártires da Pátria, 81

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